When Yingluck fled the country, there was an online campaign to find her son since he did not leave the country with her.
I cannot remember what the excuse for that witch hunt is, but it was easy enough to find him at his school.
Eventually, a teacher became one of the offenders. The teacher blew a whistle at his face on school grounds, while the other students began to shun him.
During the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) protests back in 2013 and 2014, many of their supporters who are parents also thought it was cute to adorn their kids with Thai flags and whistles to protest sites and even to schools.
Before that, some of the Yellow Shirts and the Red Shirts followers were also doing the same – and there is no difference this time around.
Some parents who support the students’ three demands for democracy are now making younger kids flash the three fingers salute to post on social media.
One social media post even shows a three-year-old kindergartner raising her little hand in the gesture just to please her parents who thought this was an acceptable, noble thing to do.
It is all unacceptable and should not keep on existing.
This involves kids, kids who cannot even grasp or think about voting. Forcing your young kids into politics is wrong. If you asked me then how come high school students should be allowed to have their own political idea now then I would like to refer to the fact that Thailand’s voting age is 18, not 14.
Younger kids should be completely protected from politics until they care enough to ask about it, while older kids should be allowed to develop their own political ideology without interference from their parents.
Politicians’ younger sons and daughters also have the rights to be protected from the actions of their parents. After all, no one can choose where, when, to whom, and what family they will be born to.
Yingluck’s son should not be dragged into the conflict between people who hate Thaksin and people who love Thaksin.
As much as Prayut’s daughters should not be dragged into the conflict between people who support him and the people who want to get rid of him.
In 2014, Sutchai Boonchai, leader of the Friends of Thaksin group, posted on his Facebook page asking members of the public to take hostage of Prayut’s twin daughters.
In 2020, an online campaign named #ตามหาลูกประยุทธ์ popped up over last weekend in the guise to find out where Prayut’s unusual wealth is going to.
They said this was about finding where is his money going to while claiming that his daughters were the ones laundering them.
First of all, shouldn’t we find where his money is coming from and whether they are legitimate or not? Is there any evidence or ongoing corruption case against him? Is there any evidence that his daughters were laundering this money besides using it?
If this is about wealth tracing, why post up the daughters’ photos?
Then comes the people who said that since his government is harassing students who are other people sons and daughters — then the public should be able to do the same.
And if this is about revenge and about using junta’s tactic against them, then these people who are asking for democracy are no better than the junta’s enforcers themselves.
There is no need to result to the junta’s tactic because if history is to prove itself, a campaign of non-violence and civil disobedience is always more successful than a violent one.
The students and their supporters should never result in violence because that is what the junta wants.
Coup-makers want violence and they want people to fight against each other because it would give them the excuse to send out soldiers from their camps in the name of “national security.”
If protesters are crying foul to the junta’s witch hunts against university students, activists and musicians then some of them who are creating a witch hunt against Prayut’s daughters should stop too. It’s the same thing.
Young kids should be protected from their parents’ actions, even if those actions were corruption, treason or even murders.
However, if they were found to be knowingly involved in these actions and are old enough to go to a juvenile court, then that is another story altogether.
Still, the process of punishment should be up to justice, not a series of cyber witch hunts and vigilantes.