In a courtroom in Bangkok, the clinking of shackles announces the arrival of five prisoners, men who have become intimately familiar with the revolving door of Thai justice. Among them is Arnon Nampa, a 42-year-old human rights lawyer with greying hair and glasses, who opens his arms to embrace his three-year-old son, Karl, brought to court by his partner. Arnon's crime? Dressing as Harry Potter at a 2020 protest and suggesting Thailand's monarchy should be open to scrutiny. For this, a court sentenced him to two years and eight months under Article 112, the lèse majesté law, which has jailed more people for perceived royal insults than all other countries with similar laws combined. This is just one of 14 cases against Arnon, bringing his cumulative sentence to over 34 years, with two verdicts still pending.
"To me, this isn't a surprise," Arnon told reporters. "If the country was more open, we would be able to talk about these issues freely." The past six years have seen the most extensive use of lèse majesté in Thai history, a response to unprecedented 2020 student protests that called for public discussion of the monarchy's role. A total of 294 people, including 20 under 18, have been prosecuted, receiving sentences of up to 50 years. Dozens remain on trial, most denied bail and held in jail even as their cases drag on for years. Thai officials defend the law as reflecting "the culture and history of Thailand, where the monarchy is one of the main pillars of the nation, highly revered by the majority of Thai people."
Article 112 reads simply: "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years." In practice, it's been stretched to cover any negative comment about any royal family member, the institution itself, long-deceased kings, and in one case, the king's dog. "If you ask me what the text of the law says, I can tell you," says Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate, assistant director of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. "If you ask me how the courts interpret the words 'defame' or 'insult', I don't think I can give you a definition, because it's so ambiguous, it's so vague. Even questioning the law itself, for example, can constitute lèse majesté under Section 112."
From his cell in Bangkok Remand Prison, where he's been for three years, Arnon writes to his children. "Dear Pran and Karl, my beloved children," he penned. "The winter wind has not only brought us cool weather, but also brings back stories from the past. I miss the time we travelled outside Bangkok that first winter after Karl came into this world. It was such a magical time for me. I shall miss it every winter I spend here until I regain my freedom." Karl, too young to visit, thinks the court is just where his dad works. His 10-year-old sister Pran visits and draws for him. Supporters fill the courtroom, mingling cheerfully with prisoners before hearings - an improbably informal setting for men facing one of Thailand's most feared charges.
The law has smothered public discussion of the monarchy. Until six years ago, opinions were whispered only in private; one taxi driver was jailed after a passenger reported his cab-side comments. Younger Thais grew frustrated with the conservative government led by coup-leader Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha. In 2019, millions voted for Future Forward, a party promising sweeping reforms, but in February 2020, the Constitutional Court dissolved it on a technicality. The Covid pandemic delayed protests for three months, but as infections fell, students rallied against the military's political role. Arnon argued this didn't go far enough. In Harry Potter garb, he gave a speech saying it was time to discuss the monarchy's opaque power and wealth, criticising King Vajiralongkorn's personal control of the Crown Property Bureau's vast assets and key army units. In one speech, he shattered a taboo.
The lèse majesté law had been suspended for three years, but the protests forced a reassessment. From late 2020, prosecutions restarted and accelerated. Dozens of young activists fled into exile. One is Supitcha "Melinn" Chailom, 24, from Chiang Mai, now in Montreal, a fugitive from four 112 charges. At 18, she raised a three-finger Hunger Games salute at a Chiang Mai University protest, just three weeks after Arnon's speech. The image went viral. She travelled the country demanding education reform and polling public opinion on the monarchy. "I love playing games, and I dreamed of being a game designer," she told the BBC from Canada. But her parents disapproved. "I felt that, as a young person, I could not question, or have a discussion with people older than me. The monarchy gave me the same vibe."
In November 2020, Melinn spoke at a protest in Hat Yai, comparing the royal treatment of the king's dog to that of ordinary people. Nine months later, police delivered a summons to her home. "It was a shock. I wasn't expecting it because I only talked about the dog. It was during Covid when the police came to my home with the summons, so they knew my parents would be there with me. They tried to stay calm, but I nearly lost my mind." Her family urged her to cooperate, but she refused. She joined Thalu Wang, or "breaking through the palace," which held street polls on royal motorcades and the monarchy's power. "We knew the risks, but we thought it would be safer just conducting a poll. It turns out it was not." She faced two more charges in 2022, was detained, then released on bail with an electronic ankle monitor, barred from leaving home between 4pm and 6am. Her parents had to sign a document promising to inform on her. Facing decades in jail, she fled with a friend and eventually got asylum in Canada.
Article 112 is theoretically amendable by elected MPs - it was amended in 1976 to increase punishment to three to 15 years - but the Constitutional Court has decreed the law untouchable. The reformist Move Forward party, successor to Future Forward, was dissolved in 2024, and its leader banned from politics, merely for proposing less harsh punishments. Courts make defense difficult. "In many cases, like the one against Arnon Nampa, prosecutors accuse the defendant of lying about the monarchy," says Chaimaneekarakate. "But when we ask the judge to subpoena documents or witnesses who could show the truth of what the defendant says, the judge refuses to do it. When one lawyer protested against the court deciding that the trial would be held in secret, she was warned by the judge to be quiet or face a contempt of court charge." Judges sometimes criticise activists before trials even start.
Arnon, the spark of the debate, gets the harshest punishment. Despite the odds, he prepares carefully for every appearance, participating in his own defense and helping other inmates. He must memorise all arguments - no written notes allowed. Judges object to him acting as a lawyer in his brown prison shorts, barefoot and shackled. But it gives him a chance to see his family. His letters are the only other contact. He may spend his life in prison. He wants his children to know him and understand why he chose to challenge the system. "Since the first day that we made up our mind to take up this mission, we knew of the dangers. Speaking the truth is not difficult. What is difficult is speaking a forbidden truth. I remember well that on the evening of 3 August 2020, after speaking at the Harry Potter event, I felt very good, content, and relieved to have finally begun speaking about the truth, in public," he wrote last year. Earlier this year: "Living here is a struggle. But it is just a dot in the bigger picture of our movement's struggle. We must play a part in writing our own history. Become a drop of water that will one day become an ocean."