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Thailand protests: pro-democracy movement hits pause on demonstrations, but for how long?
- Rallies have evaporated from Bangkok’s streets, leaving commentators to ask whether the change is an indicator of smart tactics or a loss of cohesion
- There are also divisions inside the coalition of student, labour, LGBTQ and youth groups over the direction ahead – but the momentum continues online
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Outside a Bangkok police station, pro-democracy protest leader Attapon Buapat counts out on his fingers the charges against him. “Eight … no, maybe nine,” he said, listing the likes of sedition, unlawful assembly and the once-dreaded royal defamation law.
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If convicted, he faces long years in jail – just like many of the cast of young political newcomers who have been fast-tracked into erudite, fearless leaders of a reform movement that has changed Thailand.
In the six months since small rallies inside university campuses burst onto the streets, they have tested, provoked, debated and ridiculed the entire structure of Thai power: its army, its out-of-touch politicians, tycoons and – most extraordinarily – its king.
In return, they have faced police water cannons and tear gas, angry royalist mobs and an avalanche of charges against their leaders, including for lèse-majesté – section 112 of the Thai criminal code, which carries between three and 15 years for each charge of insulting the monarchy.
While authorities wielded the law today, the future belonged to the young, said Attapon, a satirist whose merciless takedowns of Thailand’s establishment have made him a protest pin-up.
“The lèse-majesté law might just be the last weapon that the establishment has to silence those trying to speak the truth,” he told This Week in Asia. “But the cat’s already out of the bag. There’s no more fear. Simply put, Thailand will never be the same again.”
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