An ultra-royalist educator is calling for martial law to help control the Covid-19 situation, it is as ridiculous as it sounds.
“Whoever gathers to protest will be arrested, put on trial with the military court and immediately imprisoned. In this way, there will be peace and the outbreak will be controllable,” said Arnond Sakworawich.
Arnond, who is an assistant professor at the National Institute of Development Administration, show how deep military propaganda has dug its way into the mind of royalists who prefer to use violence against people who think differently than to listen.
Somehow, to them, martial law is the only way to stop people from protesting against the government and criticizing the royal institution.
Charging people with sedition, lese-majeste, violations of the state of emergency’s orders and the Computer Crime Act is still not enough to silence the protestors so the only way is to point guns at their faces?
This society deserves better than that.
Not only is Arnond asking for soldiers to come out and arrest protestors, he also said that the emergency decree’s ban on assembly are not working and the government has failed to stop the protest.
Isn’t Arnond breaking the law with his call for violence?
Of course he is not going to be arrested because this military government is biased.
They are biased because they have to keep the image that they are the protectors of the royal institution so that they can keep on being in power and continue to use it as an excuse for the next coup.
What could be done instead of using guns to silence dissidents is dialogue. Something that this government is refusing to do because they do not know how to do it.
They are soldiers and see the protestors as enemies, not people that they are supposed to serve and listen to.
It has been a year and this government continues to ignore all of their calls including calls to resign and fixing the constitution.
The biggest call from the protestors right now is for Prayut to go but if the royalists are still seeing it as an attempt to change Thailand into a republic, they will continue to call for a coup or a martial law to stop it from happening.
That is why there is a needs to be dialogue with all sides.
It is scary how there are still people who are agreeing with Arnond when our history is littered with massacres.