Thailand has a new prime minister. Paetongtarn Shinawatra was sworn in on 18 August and, at 37, is the youngest-ever holder of the role. But for the country’s young democracy activists, there seems little hope of an end to the criminalisation they face.

Military power

Shinawatra got the job after the previous prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, was sacked by the Constitutional Court for appointing a cabinet minister with a criminal conviction. The court’s verdict wasn’t really a shock: Thavisin is the fourth prime minister in 16 years it’s kicked out.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra is no break with the past. She’s Thailand’s third prime minister from the same family. Her father is Thaksin Shinawatra, long a controversial figure in Thai politics, while her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra was the country’s first female prime minister.

Business tycoon Thaksin, one of Thailand’s richest people, founded the Pheu Thai Party and its two predecessors, both dissolved by the Constitutional Court. Pheu Thai is a populist party that combines economic and social liberalism, appealing particularly to poorer people. Its main foe has always been the military, which frequently intervenes in politics: since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, Thailand has had 13 successful military coups and nine attempted ones.

The army ousted Thaksin in 2006. He went into exile and was convicted in absentia and detained on his return in August 2023. The military also deposed a Pheu Thai government in 2014. In 2019 military rulers turned their government into a civilian administration through an election that was neither free nor fair.

But by the next election, held in 2023, parties allied with the military were divided and the army’s unpopularity was such that political change seemed possible. Pheu Thai came second, but first place in parliament’s elected lower house was taken by Move Forward, a progressive party promising political, social and economic reforms.

But the military had other ideas. When the junta rewrote the constitution in 2017, it introduced a new requirement: the prime minister needs to win the approval of a majority of the two combined parliamentary chambers – the elected House of Representatives and the appointed Senate. All senators are military appointees.

In 2023, the senators duly prevented a coalition of Move Forward, Pheu Thai and other parties entering government. Pheu Thai then did what it had explicitly ruled out and went into coalition with two military-aligned parties. This always looked like a government of uneasy convenience and has never been popular. The deal sparked an instant backlash, and an economic downturn has fuelled discontent among people who believed Pheu Thai would make their lives better.

Pheu Thai may hope that, by putting forward a young prime minister, it can distance itself from the older generation of the military establishment and appeal to the many young people who backed Move Forward. But with the military maintaining an effective veto over the choice of prime minister and the Constitutional Court continuing to make conservative, pro-establishment decisions, this change looks superficial.

Royal influence

Before the Constitutional Court removed Thavisin, it banned Move Forward, just as it had its predecessor, Future Forward, in 2020. It did so to protect Thailand’s other great anti-democratic power: the monarchy.

The law gives extraordinary protection to King Maha Vajiralongkorn, the world’s richest monarch. Section 112 of the Criminal Code – often called the lèse-majesté law – makes it a crime to defame, insult or threaten the monarch. Unlike Pheu Thai, which has never crossed this line, Move Forward and its predecessor pledged to reform the law.

Because of this policy, the Constitutional Court ruled in January that Move Forward had violated section 49 of the constitution, which makes it illegal to ‘overthrow the democratic regime’ with the king as head of state, and ordered it to drop the idea. In August, the court ordered the party’s dissolution and banned its leaders from standing for office for the next 10 years. Further threats may be on the way: the National Anti-Corruption Commission has launched an investigation into the conduct of 44 Move Forward politicians.

It was Future Forward’s dissolution in 2020 that sparked a youth-led protest movement demanding democracy, human rights, social change and curbs on military and royal power. This wave swept Move Forward to first place in the 2023 election.

Seeing the king as a clear obstacle to the democratic freedoms they wanted, young protesters broke a taboo by mocking and satirising him. Although he spends most of his time in Germany, where he enjoys an international playboy lifestyle, the king freely intervenes in Thai affairs to protect his many interests. He insisted that clauses safeguarding royal power be included in the 2017 constitution and in 2019 took control of two army regiments. One of his first acts as king was to assume direct control of the Crown Property Bureau, which has a reported value of US$40 billion.

As the king’s military connections suggest, the forces repressing democratic freedoms in Thailand work together. Pro-military parties defend what they characterise as traditional Thai values, chief among them deference to the monarchy.

So when people started to openly question the monarchy, the authorities responded with intense repression. On top of security force violence and protest bans, the government ended a period of restraint over its use of the lèse-majesté law. The Constitutional Court gave it the green light, ruling that calls for monarchical reform undermine state security and constitute abuses of rights and freedoms.

The law has since been used against numerous people. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a human rights organisation, tracks that 1,954 people have been charged for expressing their opinions or protesting since protests began in 2020. At least 272 of them have been charged under the lèse-majesté law. It’s routine for courts to deny defendants bail or impose strict conditions, and those found guilty can receive long sentences: in 2021, Anchan Preelerd was sentenced to a staggering 43 and a half years for posting audio clips on social media.

The convictions keep coming. In March, student Kanoon Siriphom Phumphuengputh was sentenced to two years in prison on lèse-majesté charges after making a speech at a protest. The following month, human rights lawyer and democracy activist Arnon Nampa, already serving previous sentences, was given a further two-year term for calling for reform of the lèse-majesté law. He received another four-year sentence in July, bringing his total sentence to 14 years.

In May, political activist Panupong Jadnok was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of violating the lèse-majesté law and the Computer Crimes Act over a Facebook post. That same month, Move Forward member of parliament Chonthicha Jangrew was given a two-year sentence for a 2021 speech that referred to the government’s changes to the law to enable the king’s control of the Crown Property Bureau. There are many more in the queue.

In May, activist Netiporn ‘Bung’ Sanesangkhom died in a prison hospital after going on hunger strike in protest at her arbitrary detention and that of others. A member of the Thalu Wang protest group that calls for lèse-majesté reform, she was detained under that law after interviewing people about traffic controls imposed because of royal motorcades. No one has been held accountable for her death.

Time for reform

Lèse-majesté is just one of several problematic laws in Thailand. Others used to suppress demands for human rights and democratic freedoms include the Criminal Code’s provisions on sedition and the Computer Crimes Act.

Nor is Thailand the only country with such a law: Cambodia introduced one in 2018 and recently used it to jail young environmental activists. But Thailand stands out as the country where this kind of law has been applied most drastically and its use has intensified.

The United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has consistently found that people held under the lèse-majesté law are arbitrary detained, in violation of Thailand’s international human rights obligations. And yet Thailand is currently pushing to join the UN Human Rights Council, with a decision to be made in October. The government has said it’s committed to advancing rights at home – but the then prime minister and other top officials avoided meeting UN human rights chief Volker Türk when he visited Thailand in June.

Neither Move Forward nor the protest movement have given up. Move Forward’s successor, the People’s Party, has formed under new leadership and continues to propose reform of the lèse-majesté law. But those seeking democratic freedoms will continue to face the interrelated challenges of military and royal influence and a conservative legal system bent on maintaining the status quo. In circumstances where the electoral route to change is so difficult, it’s particularly vital for the authorities to respect people’s right to speak out and protest.

Thailand is currently on the CIVICUS Monitor Watch List, which highlights countries in which a severe and abrupt deterioration in the quality of civic space is taking place.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org