Of all his speeches since the very first rally, human rights lawyer Anon Numpha has never incited any violence but rather has demanded that his supporters and friends follow a path of peace.
He asked simply and peaceufully for democratic reform. Yet somehow, he is charged with sedition.
None of the others arrested seem to have done the crimes they were charged for either.
Unless, of course, this steaming remnant of a military government can explain to me how a 19-year-old rapper, singing and performing can incite unrest that would threaten the security of the state.
Let’s be reminded here which side has the guns and the tanks, which side has not hesitated to use them on unarmed protesters in the past, which side has killed and tortured arbitrarily and without repercussion.
Yet it is the students and activists that are a threat to the country?
Uneven Fight
The current government has the army, the courts, the police, the institutions that they have built for the past 100 years. It is not an even fight.
So Anon and Mike decided, last week, not to play the game by their rules.
“If they are creating a condition that would lead to another big rally, it would be their own fault,” Anon told us at the last big protest in August.
In his letter before going to jail, Anon said he is “willing to risk everything for change.”
That is what the government has turned this into, a zero-sum game because some old men want to cling to the power that they got by gunpoint.
Anon understands that the government can play this game forever, protest and arrest, incarceration and intimidation. He chose not to play, he chose to go to jail, he chose to become a symbol.
If something were to happen to him in jail, the government will be the only one held culpable. He didn’t choose this path, the government made him a martyr.
Student protest leaders are now calling a rally every day at Bangkok Remand Prison until September 7 to make sure that Anon and Mike do not disappear into the night.
The high school and university kids we have spoken to in the past week are angry, they realize how unfairly the deck has been stacked.
The government can promise reform all it wants but actions speak louder than words.
As one kid asked us this past weekend, “why would we want to negotiate with people who would arrest us the following morning?”
