By Thai Academic Network for Civil Rights (TANC) |
<div>On 23 June 2016, students and a group of labor union board members campaigned around the Bang Phli Industrial Estate to disseminate information about the draft constitution and urge people to exercise their right to vote in the referendum. But soldiers and police interrupted and stopped them. They were arrested and accused of violating Head of the NCPO Order No. 3/2558 [2015] and the Referendum Act of B.E. 2559 [2016].
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<div>Thai academics and activists have announced that they will deactivate their Facebook accounts as a protest against Facebook Thailand for its compromise with the junta on censorship.
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By Attachak Sattayanurak |
<p dir="ltr"><em><span id="docs-internal-guid-0952d7e3-58a6-8995-7670-4a414fce838f">Note: Attachak Sattayanurak is one of the six university lecturers charged </span>with violating National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Order No. 3/2015, which bans political gatherings of five or more persons, after holding a press conference and releasing a statement entitled <a href="http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/5635">“The University is Not a Military Base”</a> in Chiang Mai on 31 October 2015.</em></p>
<div>A group of almost 300 academics denounced the junta’s arrest of 14 anti-junta activists, mostly university students, as “barbaric.”</div>
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<div>The Network of Academics Concerned about Arrested Students, consisting of educators from all across Thailand, declared in a statement released Tuesday, June 30, that “only a tyrant would react using brute force and enforcement of barbaric laws on students using their citizens’ rights to call for reinstatement of internationally-held values and governance.”</div>
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<div>The statement praises the activists’ pro-democracy
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<div>Somsak Jeamteerasakul, a renowned anti-coup and anti-lèse majesté law historian on Saturday morning returned to his popular Facebook profile for the first time since his disappearance after the coup in 22 May. </div>
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<div>More than 100 academics, activists, and others on Thursday announced in a joint statement, “Down with martial law… power belongs to all the people.” </div>
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