Rights group decries 'repression' in Thailand

"Respect for fundamental freedoms and democracy in Thailand under military rule has fallen into an apparently bottomless pit. Six months after the coup, criticism is systematically prosecuted, political activity is banned, media is censored, and dissidents are tried in military courts,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW.

The group noted that five Khon Kaen University students who protested against junta leader and Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha last week were threatened with military-court trials for violating martial law. Meanwhile a female student in Bangkok who did a three-finger salute in protest was detained and interrogated at Bangkok Army Club for several hours before being released without charge.

The New York-based rights group said at least 14 new lese majeste cases were pending in the military court since the coup. And on Monday a Thai E-News website editor with the pen-name Somsak Pakdeedech was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for publishing an article deemed insulting to the monarchy.

HRW also noted that on November 12, police announced a ban on the book “A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-First Century” written by former Reuters journalist Andrew MacGregor Marshall, claiming the book insulted and fomented hatred of members of the Royal Family.

“The NCPO’s suppression of free expression and public assembly makes the government’s self-proclaimed ‘reform’ process into a sham that lacks broad-based participation and strictly follows the junta’s guidelines,” it said.

Human Rights Watch urged the National Council for Peace and Order to reverse course and revoke martial law, end rights abuses, “and take concrete steps towards democratic elections if it wants to persuade the international community it’s not a dictatorship”, Adams concluded.