Testing royal taboos: Inside Thailand’s new youth protests | Malay Mail

Demonstrators walk past a portrait of Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn during a protest demanding the resignation of Thailand's Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, in Bangkok, Thailand July 26, 2020. — Reuters/Jorge Silva pic

“No other democratic countries allow the king to have this much power over the military,” he told about 200 protesters, with police standing by as he spoke. “This increases the risk that a monarchy in a democracy could become an absolute monarchy.” However, on Friday August 7 police said Anon was taken into custody and charged with several offences relating to a separate protest on July 18, including “raising unrest and disaffection amongst the people,” which carries a maximum seven-year sentence.

The reaction from authorities, so far, has been limited. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha, who first took power in a 2014 military coup, told reporters on August 4, the day after Anon’s speech, that the government was open to talking to the students. He said on June 15 that the king had requested no prosecutions under the lese majeste law.

The police did not explain why Anon had not been charged under the lese majeste law for his speech at the August 3 protest.Even though King Vajiralongkorn spends much of his time in Germany, his image is pervasive in Thailand. Gold-framed royal portraits look down on city streets. Cinemas play a royal anthem at which audiences are traditionally expected to stand.

“Yes, I am afraid, but if we don’t come out to talk about what is necessary then the problems will continue,” said student Thanapol Panngam, 27, one of the organisers of Monday’s protest. “How’s the weather in Germany?” read one placard at one of the first campus protests in Bangkok in February, a seemingly innocuous question but one that most Thais would recognise as a reference to Vajiralongkorn spending more time in Bavaria than Bangkok.But from their phones and laptops back home, the activists kept up the pressure online - and with it the questioning of the monarchy.

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