The list of people facing charges of insulting Thailand’s royal family – a crime that lasts up to 15 years in prison – is growing rapidly.
It includes a popular opposition figure who this week called into question the process by which a company owned by the king was selected to produce Covid-19 vaccines and a 16-year-old boy who, at a fashion show satirizing the king, he wore a crop top revealing a reference to the monarch squeaking on his skin. The teenage protester declined to comment.
As of November, at least 54 people have faced criminal complaints under the lèse-majesté law banning any perceived insult to the Thai monarchy, according to the Thai human rights group legal aid group. Some of them were called by police, launching investigations, the group said.
Most of them are protesters who have changed Thailand’s political landscape in recent months, defying long-standing social taboos and openly questioning the role and influence of the crown. The palace has traditionally had an almost sacred status in Thai society. But many in the new protest movement see the crown as part of the royalist-military elite, which they say is hampering democratic progress in their country shaken by frequent coups and political unrest.