Thailand

Peter Boyle reports that at the conclusion of a 30,000-strong rally in Bangkok, the young organisers of a new democracy movement called for a general strike on the anniversary of the 1973 student uprising that brought down the Thanom Kittikachorn military dictatorship.

Thousands of students rallied on August 10 at Thammasat University in Bangkok, an iconic place in Thailand's long history of pro-democracy struggles, in the largest of a string of student-led protests since July 18, reports Peter Boyle.

Missing poster for Wanchalearm Satsakit

Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn has been implicated in the recent abduction and disappearance of Thai dissident Wanchalearm Satsaksit, who had been living in exile in Cambodia, writes Peter Boyle.

Left and progressive groups are concerned for the safety of Wanchalearm Satsaksit, a Thai political dissident who has been living in exile in Cambodia, and are calling on the Cambodian government to act immediately to launch an investigation into his abduction, locate him and ensure his safety.

This Australian-made film dramatises the experience of a 14-year-old Cambodian boy who is tricked into boarding a fishing vessel, where he is enslaved.

Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, has since 2014 been branded an 'enemy of the state' by Thai authorities. He spoke to Green Left Weekly's Peter Boyle.

The campaign to stop the refoulment of refugee Hakeem al-Araibi from Thailand to Bahrain is growing, with many football authorities taking a stand.

Paris protest against Prayut

As Thailand's military dictator, Prime Minister and former General Prayut Chan-o-cha visited Europe last week in a desperate attempt to woo more foreign investment, Thai democracy rights protesters rallied in Paris, London and Bonn, calling for his arrest for crimes against his own people. They also called upon European governments to put human rights before profits.

The pictures of thousands of Thais crying and wearing black after the death of King Pumipon might lead a sane person to conclude that most Thais were political half-wits with a slave-like mentality. That would be a wrong conclusion.

We have to factor in the royalist military repression. Anyone criticising the king can be jailed under the draconian lese-majeste (insulting the monarch) law. Added to this is the green light given by the junta for mobs of fanatical royalists to “deal” with dissidents.

Thailand’s King Pumipon Adulyadej died on October 13 aged 88, after more than 70 years on the throne. Thai socialist Giles Ji Ungpakorn has been in exile since he was charged with lese majeste (insulting the monarch) over a 2006 book criticising the king’s support for a military coup. Below he assesses the monarch’s role as a block to democracy and social justice.

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King Pumipon was a weak and characterless monarch who spent his useless and privileged life in a bubble, surrounded by fawning, grovelling toadies who claimed that he was a “god”.
Protest against coup regime in Thailand

It can be said that any “international bad press” about Thailand’s military junta generated by the comments from Western governments is welcome — especially when they demand the release of political prisoners.

When an all-female army of journalists, dressed as schoolgirls, burst into laughter at a “lunch party” with the Thailand's military junta chief Prayut Chan-o-cha at Government House on January 8, it became the talk of the town. Commentators took to social media to lament the wretched state of Thai media. A senior Thai journalist, Pravit Rojanapuruk, labelled the journalists as “lapdogs” in a column in the progressive daily Khaosod English.