A tale of two criminal cases

A suspect accused of armed activity during the political turmoil preceding the overthrow of the Yingluck Shinawatra administration has been given a lengthy jail term. This news may have been overshadowed by another ruling, which sentenced a famous TV personality to over 13 years in prison. Public reactions to the two verdicts were divided along political lines, obviously, but more intriguing is the fact that both verdicts were delivered while the Thai political and justice systems are supposed to favour one side of the national strife more than the other.

The two cases have taught us many lessons. The ruling against the TV news host sparked a nationwide soul-searching related to where we should stand regarding corruption. The other case should make everyone stop and think really hard about armed activities, which have been common in the modern Thai political history.

Political violence, no matter who is responsible for them, have similar characteristics: Many of the victims are innocent people and the wrongdoers often go scot-free. This leads to the big question: Is it all right to harm, cause great public disturbance or even kill others if you are doing it in the name of politics? Many people may say “No”, but, sadly, it’s always been a “Yes.”

A zealous anti-government activist was shot dead in broad daylight before the Yingluck administration was ousted in a coup. Predictably, one camp decried the killing but said the government had it coming regarding the military intervention. The other camp was virtually silent about his death but went ballistic on the coup. When it comes to moral judgement, political leanings always come into play in Thailand. Some people were killed because “they deserved it”, while others “weren’t supposed to die”.

Many people died protesting against or for certain politicians. Many others died during those protests although they had nothing to do with them. It has been this way for many years and we can count on the fingers of one hand how many have been legally punished for the deaths. To make it more puzzling, some so-called human-rights watchers have been silent on certain cases and gone extremely vocal on others.

When people think it is all right to kill for political causes, they will not be crossing any line because there is basically no line left to cross. Anything can be in the name of politics. When people say staging a coup is taking it too far, they amazingly ignore the possibility that things may have gone too far already. When a coup is condemned with the “two wrongs don’t make a right” logic, true human tragedies have seemed to be overlooked. 

The “popcorn gunman” has been given 37 years in jail for killing one and wounding two during a violent political clash. It’s the court’s judgement that what he did was plain illegal and wrong. The court didn’t take other factors into account. There were other “secondary questions” such as whether he was a good young man or whether he was “forced” to do what he did because there was no other option available for him. If the court had gone down that road, many cases would have ended up with acquittals.

Many things had happened before those two planes slammed into the World Trade Centre towers. The same goes with all the bombings elsewhere that took innocent lives. If we trace the dots carefully, we may find that while vengeance is a motive, the real tragic turning point is when humans start accepting innocent deaths as a necessary collateral damage.