Last night Thongchai Winichakun gave a talk at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand about the increased application of the lèse-majesté law since 2006.
Thongchai is a professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of the well known 1997 book Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation
Here are my Tweets from the event, in reverse-chronological order. I thought it might be helpful to provide them all together here.
More soon on this topic, perhaps, but I wanted to post these snippets for now.
Thongchai’s talk is over. Extremely frank words on Thai democracy and lese majeste laws. Big turnout at @fccthai too.
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai: Thammasat admin always focused on their world rankings, but this episode hurts aspirations to be world class univ.
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai on Thammasat University and Nitirat group: TU “should open up for debate. I haven’t lost all hope.”
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai on army chief Prayuth criticizing Nitirat group: In a civilized place Prayuth would have been sacked.
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai on 112: Before Nicolaides, foreigners weren’t locked up. They were deported. And Joe Gordon changed game because he was in US.
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai on Thaksin: He didn’t create crisis. He is himself a product of socio-economic conditions.
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai: Reasons for current crisis: Thai society has changed socio-economically; dominance of “royalist democracy.”
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
Thongchai: Two factors have contributed to increase in LM cases: 1) rise of “royalist democracy” and 2) “hyper royalism.”
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012
I’m at the @fccthai for historian Thongchai Winichakun’s talk on lese majeste law. May be tweeting some quotes.
— Newley Purnell (@newley) February 13, 2012