BANGKOK — Their revolutionary symbol is the anti-government three-finger salute made famous in Hollywood’s “Hunger Games” movies.
But Thailand is no dystopian fiction. A string of surprisingly durable protests here are demanding democratic reforms to the government, monarchy, education system and laws controlling human rights, posing a major challenge to the authoritarian government of a longtime U.S. ally.
In an often traditional society, the protesters aren’t afraid to push the boundaries.
Activists from the LGBTQ community stage risque skits calling for equal rights. Abortion rights advocates display colorful drawings of the female anatomy to attract attention to their petitions.
Others mock and insult leaders with scathing posters and public performances.
The most audacious target of the largely student-led protests is one of the world’s wealthiest monarchs, King Maha Vajiralongkorn. Protesters are risking imprisonment with their rhetoric and defiant acts criticizing the throne, which is constitutionally protected from criticism and has long been considered an unassailable pillar of Thai national identity.
Thai police on Tuesday were tearing down tents and making preemptive arrests of activists who were camped out for a Wednesday rally along the route that the king was expected to take for a royal ceremony. Some protesters resisted by throwing blue paint at police as they have done in other recent rallies, The Associated Press reported.
Protest leaders insist they don’t want to overthrow the monarchy but say the king’s powers should be curtailed. They have broken many taboos concerning debate about the monarchy in pressing their case.
“The monarchy has to be under the constitution; that is how it supposed to be,” protester Waranya Siripanya, 21, told the Reuters news agency this week.
King Vajiralongkorn’s defenders include the U.S.-trained army, the military-backed government and an influential elite of royalists, business leaders and academics. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a powerful former army chief, warned the protesters last week against going too far.
“Can we allow what they have proposed: that they hate and disrespect the monarchy?” Mr. Prayuth said Friday. “If so, I don’t think Thailand can survive.”
The peaceful student-led protesters also want to oust Mr. Prayuth’s government, installed under a constitution that Mr. Prayuth largely wrote, and replace the hierarchic “feudalism” with democracy, a new constitution and fresh elections.
Protesters named themselves the People’s Group, a pointed reference to the movement that led a June 1932 coup that changed the absolute monarchy into a constitutional monarchy. Protesters also have chosen rally dates coinciding with previous coups and protests, symbolizing, they say, decades of repression.
Since July, protests expanded in streets and on campuses. Tens of thousands of people gathered in Bangkok in front of the Grand Palace on Sept. 19 and 20 — 14 years to the day after the military coup that toppled the elected civilian government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The period of instability that followed led Mr. Prayuth to effectively secure power as head of a military-dominated junta in 2014.
Many analysts fear this latest bid to bring democracy to Buddhist-majority Thailand will end in bloodshed, entrenching the military and royalists deeper into controlling this Southeast Asian nation.
Some government supporters, noting a long U.S.-Thai alliance, accused the U.S. Embassy of siding with the protesters. U.S. diplomats denied the charge.
“The United States does not support any individual or political party,” the embassy said in a statement. “We support the democratic process and rule of law.”
Festive atmosphere
Despite the tensions, the protests have been largely peaceful, like a festive outdoor concert with strident speeches instead of music echoing from huge makeshift stages. Audiences picnic, buy political souvenirs, take selfies and stroll about.
But the relaxed ambiance in August and September could give way as the demonstrators press an agenda that the government is unlikely to support.
During their biggest gathering in front of the Grand Palace, crowds cheered when student leaders demanded 10 limits to the powerful monarchy. They voiced anti-monarchical statements that are considered illegal to express, for local and foreign journalists to quote, or for people within Thailand to post on the internet.
The demonstrators want “not to destroy the monarchy but to modernize it, to adapt it to our society,” said Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul, the 21-year-old university student who read out the 10 demands.
She and protest leader Parit “Penguin” Chiwarak helped crease a plate-sized brass “plaque” with a three-finger salute in the center, with a Thai inscription that read: “The people have expressed the intention that this country belongs to the people, and not the king.”
They planted the plaque in front of the Grand Palace, handed their demands to the king’s Royal Guard and vowed to emphasize those limits at rallies.
Officials removed the plaque, but pictures of it multiplied on decals, stencil graffiti, tattoos, key rings and T-shirts. Videos of students’ speeches and caustic political memes also appeared online.
The government has demanded that social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram delete hundreds of posts and sites. Authorities filed a “cybercrime” complaint Sept. 24 against U.S. companies that did not comply.
Although he has cultivated relations with the Trump White House, capped by a cordial October 2017 meeting with the president in the Oval Office, Mr. Prayuth’s moves to cement his power have rankled many in his country. After taking power, he rewrote the constitution, secured effective control of the national legislature and extended his term in office with a victory in the general election last year.
But a vote that was supposed to cement his power instead has been followed by some of the biggest protests of Mr. Prayuth’s tenure.
“In [the government’s] belief system, the people are but cattle, smiley peasants laboring in blissful ignorance, grateful for the shackles on our freedom, and thankful for the imprisonment of our human spirits,” columnist Voranai Vanijaka wrote. “Welcome to the year 2020. We are no longer slaves.”
The protesters’ strength is drawn from university and high school students who communicate online and are more outspoken than previous generations. A supportive Bad Student movement’s slogan is “Our first dictatorship is school.”
But the street protests also have attracted older, battle-hardened supporters of the previous civilian governments known as the Red Shirts. A decade ago, the Red Shirts, backing the ousted Mr. Thaksin, staged a failed, bloody, nine-week pro-election insurrection. Clashes with army troops in Bangkok left more than 90 dead, mostly Red Shirt supporters.
Voters last year who supported candidates of the liberal opposition Future Forward Party have also joined the protests. FFP backers were angry that their leader, multimillionaire Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, 39, was quickly forced out of politics for violating election laws. The FFP was banned in February.
The fervor of the protests is even more striking considering the prestige and legal protections afforded the monarchy, where criticisms of the king can result in prison sentences of up to 15 years. Thailand’s constitutions, included the newest version promulgated by Mr. Prayuth, enshrine the monarchy as a “position of revered worship.”
“No person shall expose the King to any sort of accusation or action,” the constitution reads.
Despite the arrests Tuesday, the government appears reluctant to offer a full crackdown on the protests. Charges against leading demonstrators have been relatively mild and in all known cases they have been released on bail, the AP reported.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.
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