THE STRONG ARM OF THE LAW
>> The most heavily armed military member in Thailand in the most heavily armed unit of the Royal Thai Armed Forces is the head of the Judge Advocate-General (JAG) office of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). He proved it again last week.
In May of 2014, the coup-makers handed the keys to the JAG office to Lt Col (since promoted to full colonel) Burin Thongprapai, a trained and experienced lawyer who dedicated himself to military service instead of opening a law office.
The strength of military law, like all military arms, is based on weapons. Some have more, some less. Infantry have the biggest variety — rifles and mortars, artillery and rifles. Other units have F16s and .38-calibre pistols, or hand grenades and M-16 assault weapons.
The JAG office of the NCPO laughs. Instead of one major weapon Col Burin and staff have four main assault laws — sedition, lese majeste, criminal defamation and the sweet, sweet Computer Crime Act. They don’t need personal sidearms or rifles; they have two dozen orders signed by the head of the NCPO, each with the force of law to charge people with speaking out of turn, or meeting the wrong friends, or typing an unacceptable message on Line or clicking “Like” on the wrong Facebook post.
And finally, the JAG prosecutors or persecutors have their greatest weapon, the ability to bring any bewildered, uninformed citizen in front of a court martial, with its closed courtrooms, lack of defence ability, no-appeal no-visitors witness-control atmosphere. (Insert mandatory “martial law is to law...” bitter simile here.)
Last week, in his latest outing to sign formal charges, Col Burin turned the power of his JAG weapons up to 11, focused on Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. He’s the 40-year-old “young Turk” billionaire trying to lead his new Future Forward (Anakot Mai) political party to election victory whenever the general prime minister decides or is forced into allowing the public to vote.
The charges in essence are “spreading fake news”. Technically, they accuse the increasingly popular Mr Thanathorn with violation of the Computer Crime Act by disseminating false data on his two main Facebook accounts, in Facebook Live broadcasts. The “fake news” is that junta operatives are working to recruit experienced (or sleazy, or for-sale) politicians in the North and Northeast to the pro-military, or Phalang Pracharat Party side.
This is a common statement. You may have uttered it yourself and certainly before today unless you’ve been on a mission to the International Space Station.
Did we mention that Col Burin’s JAG has the full right of prosecutorial discretion — who to prosecute and when? No? Well, they do.
For example. On the day that Mr Thanathorn made the statements in question on Facebook Live — he absolutely does not deny he did so — the other major and current political party leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, said exactly the same thing in public. Pheu Thai Party doesn’t currently have a leader but members said the same.
The official junta spokesman and Col Burin’s supportive superior officer, Maj Gen Piyapong Klinpan, didn’t even smile when he said that charges against the Future Freedom Party leader are not meant to intimidate. Some say that statement was nutrition for Phi Krasue.
But there’s also much more to it than just trying to discombobulate Mr Thanathorn. The prosecution — “persecution” in some minds — of Mr Thanathorn sends clear signal of what lies ahead. The greatest rules to shut down speech and free thought in the country’s history will remain active whether the general prime minister allows the 2015 election to go ahead next year or puts it to 2020 or later.
Many believe that suppression of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble and freedom to petition the government are a lingering coup hangover. That includes the ban on political activity by parties and public.
Not true. The four main laws currently used against inconveniently popular figures such as Mr Thanathorn will stay right there on the books. And then add a fifth. When political activities are permitted again, the regime has the new and largely forgotten law with the Orwellian name, Public Assembly Act 2015.
It’s actually an anti-assembly act. Anyone planning an outdoors public meeting has to get permission. Authorities can deny permission for any reason, or no reason. Meetings now banned and-or prosecuted because they have more than four people, will also be banned in the future because they are a “threat to public order”. The strongarm power of all these laws, in the hands of the regime claiming the right to supervise any election that might occur, lengthens the odds for a free, fair and open vote.