Analysis | Thailand protests: the students are revolting – and Prayuth’s army-backed government isn’t sure what to do

Name: Thailand arrests at least 8 activists in latest crackdown on anti-government protests
Uploaded: 2020-08-20T04:00:18.000Z
Duration: 1 min 48 s
Description: Thailand arrests at least 8 activists in latest crackdown on anti-government protests

The youth-led pro-democracy movement is swelling, gaining support from older demographics and as far afield as Hong Kong and Taiwan

Calls to reform the monarchy present the government with a dilemma: do nothing and watch the movement grow, or suppress it and add fuel to the fire

Reading Time:5 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Thai protesters flash the three-finger salute during an anti-government protest at the Democracy Monument in Bangkok. Photo: EPA

SCMP Reporter

Published: 12:00pm, 20 Aug 2020Updated: 9:36pm, 25 Nov 2020

It’s 8am and as the national anthem pours through loudspeakers across Thailand to start the new school day, pupils should be obediently standing to attention to sing the patriotic verses.

Instead, they are throwing the three-fingered freedom salute borrowed from the Hunger Games film, as the pro-democracy movement driven by Thailand’s youth continues to swell, confounding the army-aligned government with their demands for a political overhaul and voicing the once unthinkable: reform of the monarchy.

Days after the biggest anti-government rally since a 2014 coup, Thailand’s young people are still revolting, making new allies across older demographics – and Asian territories – and leaving their government scrambling to respond.

01:48

Thailand arrests at least 8 activists in latest crackdown on anti-government protests

The battleground for their calls to rewrite the constitution, hold fresh elections and end the judicial harassment of activists has moved to high schools, where pupils as young as 13 and 14 are defying their teachers with the daily salute.

“I want those who are brave to stand firm to find true democracy,” said a 14-year-old at a school in Mukdahan, northeastern Thailand, in a video taken before assembly which within hours had been viewed online tens of thousands of times. “Death to dictatorship, long live democracy.”

Pupils are also tying white ribbons in their hair and on their wrists as a pro-democracy gesture, and decrying an education system which depends on rote learning, enforces standardised haircuts and tough discipline over free thinking.

From Chiang Mai in the north to Bangkok and Pattani in the Muslim-majority south, videos of the salute have flipped across social media, while the hashtag #whiteribbonsagainstdictatorship has been trending across Thai Twitter all week.