Anti-junta activists staged a rare protest in Thailand on Thursday demanding the release of a prominent student leader who was detained for sharing a news story about the kingdom's new monarch on Facebook. Jatupat "Pai" Boonpatararaksa, 25, was arrested six months ago for sharing a profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn written by the BBC's Thai-language service in London on his Facebook page.
Criticising the royal family is punishable by up to 15 years in prison per count in Thailand, where the law is broadly interpreted and ferociously enforced. Some 120 people have fallen foul of the law since an ultra-royalist junta seized power in 2014 but Pai was the first to be detained under the new king's reign.
Around a dozen protesters, some wearing face masks of the detained student, held a brief rally on a pedestrian bridge in downtown Bangkok on Thursday evening. Police allowed the protest to go ahead, a rarity in the military-run nation where public displays of dissent are often quickly quashed. Protester Kornkanok Khunta, a political science student at Thammasat University, said supporters believed Pai was targeted because he was openly critical of the military.
"Two thousand people shared this news (profile) but only he got arrested," she told AFP. "Pai is a hero, he is someone who inspired people." Supporters later read out messages behind bamboo poles strung together to symbolise a jail cell as plainclothes police filmed and bemused tourists looked on. Pai hails from Thailand's northeast, a poor and rural region where anti-military sentiment runs high. He led a group of local students opposed to junta rule.
Since his arrest he has been denied bail in a series of secret court hearings while his plight has become a rallying cry for democracy activists and he has won a prominent South Korean human rights award. Earlier this month the United Nation's rights body released a fresh statement condemning Thailand's use of lese majeste. The statement noted that the conviction rate under the law had gone from 75 percent before the coup to 96 percent last year.
Many of those jailed have been handed sentences as long as 30 years, often for comments made on Facebook. Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne after the October death of his father Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades. He has yet to attain his father's widespread popularity. Debate about the monarchy's role inside Thailand is all but impossible and media must heavily self-censor when reporting on the royals.