Bhumibol Adulyadej, on whom the title of Bhumibol the Great was posthumously conferred, was the ninth king of the Chakri dynasty of Thailand, titled Rama IX, from 1946 until his death in 2016. His reign of 70 years and 126 days is the longest of any Thai monarch, the longest on record of any independent Asian sovereign, and the third-longest verified reign of any monarch of a sovereign state in history.
Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn is a Thai-British academic, and Marxist political activist. He formerly worked as a teacher at Chulalongkorn University. He worked as an associate professor in the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, before he fled to the United Kingdom in 2009 after facing a lèse majesté charge in Thailand.
Srirasmi Suwadee, formerly Princess Srirasmi, Royal Consort to the Crown Prince of Thailand, is a former member of the royal family of Thailand. She was the third consort of then-Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn from February 2001 to December 2014.
The King Never Smiles is an unauthorized biography of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej by Paul M. Handley, a freelance journalist who lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in Thailand. It is published by Yale University Press and was released in 2006. The book was banned in Thailand before publication, and the Thai authorities have blocked local access to websites advertising the book.
Censorship in Thailand involves the strict control of political news under successive governments, including by harassment and manipulation.
The Devil's Discus is an investigation into the death of King Ananda Mahidol of Siam by English-South African author Rayne Kruger.
Most Internet censorship in Thailand prior to the September 2006 military coup d'état was focused on blocking pornographic websites. The following years have seen a constant stream of sometimes violent protests, regional unrest, emergency decrees, a new cybercrimes law, and an updated Internal Security Act. Year by year Internet censorship has grown, with its focus shifting to lèse majesté, national security, and political issues. By 2010, estimates put the number of websites blocked at over 110,000. In December 2011, a dedicated government operation, the Cyber Security Operation Center, was opened. Between its opening and March 2014, the Center told ISPs to block 22,599 URLs.
Prayut Chan-o-cha is a former Thai politician and army officer who became the 29th prime minister of Thailand after seizing power in the 2014 coup d'état and served until 2023. He was concurrently the minister of defence in his own government from 2019 to 2023. Prayut served as commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army from 2010 to 2014 and led the coup d'état which installed the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), the military junta which governed Thailand between 22 May 2014 and 10 July 2019.
In Thailand, lèse-majesté is a crime according to Section 112 of the Thai Criminal Code, which makes it illegal to defame, insult, or threaten the king of Thailand, the queen of Thailand, the heir to the throne of Thailand, or the regent of Thailand. Modern Thai lèse-majesté law has been on the statute books since 1908. Thailand is the only constitutional monarchy to have strengthened its lèse-majesté law since the Second World War. With penalties ranging from three to fifteen years imprisonment for each count, it has been described as the "world's harshest lèse majesté law" and "possibly the strictest criminal-defamation law anywhere". Its enforcement has been described as being "in the interest of the palace".
Somyot Prueksakasemsuk is a Thai activist and magazine editor who in 2013 was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment for lese majeste against King Bhumibol Adulyadej. His sentence drew protest from the European Union and from numerous human rights groups, including Amnesty International, which designated him a prisoner of conscience. He was an editor of the “Voice of Thaksin” magazine and a prominent labour rights activist affiliated with the Democratic Alliance of Trade Unions who protested for Thai labour law reform.
The history of Thailand since 2001 has been dominated by the politics surrounding the rise and fall from power of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and subsequent conflicts, first between his supporters and opponents, then over the rising military influence in politics. Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai Party came to power in 2001 and became very popular among the electorate, especially rural voters. Opponents, however, criticized his authoritarian style and accused him of corruption. Thaksin was deposed in a coup d'état in 2006, and Thailand became embroiled in continuing rounds of political crisis involving elections won by Thaksin's supporters, massive anti-government protests by multiple factions, removals of prime ministers and disbanding of political parties by the judiciary, and two military coups.
Somsak Jeamteerasakul is a former history lecturer at the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Thammasat University. His academic field is contemporary political history, especially recent Thai history from 1930. He is a critic of Thailand's monarchy and its lèse majesté law. He has lived in self-imposed exile in France since the 2014 Thai coup d'état, following violent attacks and lèse majesté charges.
The network monarchy is a conceptual framework developed by some academics of Thai politics to describe a political network involved in active interventions in the political process by the monarch and his proxies under the country's constitutional monarchy system. The monarch works with and through other political agencies, such as the elected parliament, and the consensus among the Thai elite is essential. The ideology is generally situated within right-wing politics, but may take on liberal features.
Chanoknan Ruamsap is a Thai pro-democracy activist. She is taking political refuge in the Republic of Korea after the Thailand government issued a notice of prosecution against her on the charge of insulting the monarchy by sharing a BBC article about the country's new king.
In Thailand, protests began in early 2020 with demonstrations against the government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha. They later expanded to include the unprecedented demands for reform of the Thai monarchy. The protests were initially triggered by the dissolution of the Future Forward Party (FFP) in late February 2020 which was critical of Prayut, the changes to the Thai constitution in 2017, and the country's political landscape that it gave rise to.
Pavin Chachavalpongpun is a Thai scholar notable for his criticism of the Thai monarchy. He currently resides in Japan as a political exile.
The Rubbish Collection Organization is a Thai state-sponsored online ultra-royalist vigilante group that has been characterized as fascist. Headed by Rienthong Nanna, an ultra-royalist former major general, medical doctor, and special advisor to the Prime Minister, it was founded during the 2013–2014 Thai political crisis, on the side of the People's Democratic Reform Committee, and as of July 2019 had 300,000 likes on its Facebook page. The RCO is organized along professional military-style lines and engages in mob activism. Its stated aim is to 'eradicate' Thailand's “social rubbish” and to “eradicate lèse-majesté offenders completely.” The RCO seeks out potential cases of lèse majesté and reports them to the authorities. In addition, it perpetrates systematic mobbing, seeking to disclose a victim’s private address (doxing) and then inciting pro-royalists to verbally abuse the victim at their home or work. The RCO has adopted civic volunteerism and publicizes state-organized mass events, such as royalist bicycle rallies, through social media.
This is a description of domestic and international reactions to the 2020 Thai protests.
Tiwagorn Withiton is a Thai political and human rights activist, farmer and engineer. He is one of the first political activists in Thailand that openly challenge the country's taboo, harsh punishment by the Monarchy defamation law, by publishing his photo of him wearing a printed 'I lost faith in the Monarchy' T-shirt.
