A Thai court yesterday sentenced the human rights lawyer and political activist Arnon Nampa to an additional two years and eight months in prison for defaming the monarchy during a Harry Potter-themed protest in 2020.
In a closed-door hearing, the Bangkok Criminal Court ruled that Arnon had made remarks that “were deemed to have insulted the monarchy and Crown Property,” according to a report in The Nation.
The rally, which took place at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument from August 1-3, 2020, was publicized as “Harry Potter versus You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” a reference to the taboos surrounding any discussion of the Thai king. As The Nation reported at the time, “protesters said they chose the theme because Thailand’s political situation is similar to that of the Harry Potter tale in which the arch-villain, Lord Voldemort, and his followers silence those who oppose them.”
Arnon was one of the main leaders of the campaign of youth-dominated protests that erupted in the first half of 2020, after the court-ordered dissolution of the progressive Future Forward Party, which came in third place at the 2019 general election. (Future Forward’s successor party, Move Forward, would go on to win the general election in 2023.) The protests demanded the resignation of then Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the creation of a new and genuinely democratic constitution. Many activists also took the perilous step of breaking the taboo against including the Thai monarchy in their critique of Thailand’s lopsided and deeply unequal political economy.
The authorities have since come down hard on critics of the monarchy, wielding its Article 112 – the lese-majeste law, which criminalizes even minor criticisms of the king and the royal family – with abandon. According to the advocacy group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, at least 274 people faced lese-majeste charges as of September, out of nearly 2,000 who have been charged for political expression since July 2020.
The verdict is the sixth of 14 cases that Arnon faces under the lese-majeste law, which carries punishments of up to 15 years in prison. In September 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison in the first case, which involved a speech that he gave during a pro-democracy protest in October 2020, during which he called for greater public debate on the political role of the Thai monarchy. This has since been followed by convictions in September 2023, January 2024, April 2024, and July 2024, and earlier this month, when he was handed a further two years in prison for Facebook posts critical of the “royal institution.” This latest sentence brings his total term of imprisonment to 18 years, 10 months, and 20 days.
The flurry of lese-majeste convictions against one of Thailand’s most prominent political activists, to say nothing of the hundreds of other lese-majeste cases working their way through the legal system, reflects the Thai establishment’s determination to re-erect the strong taboo against any public discussion of the monarchy and its powerful role in Thailand’s political and economic life. In this environment, even advocating reforms to Article 112 has been interpreted by the Thai courts as a violation of Article 112. Indeed, it was on these very grounds that the Move Forward Party, the successor to Future Forward, was dissolved by the Constitutional Court in August.
In a statement yesterday, PEN America expressed concern for “the lack of judicial impartiality” in Arnon’s case, in particular, “the refusal to allow key defense evidence and secret proceedings that violate his right to a fair trial under international law,” and called for his release.
“Nampa’s speeches, letters, and poems have inspired countless other Thai citizens to envision a more just and equitable society, making his imprisonment a broader assault on the right to free expression for all people in Thailand,” it stated.
