A high-school executive has scolded a grade 12 student activist who refused to take a Civic Duty class exam as being mentally ill while the Education Minister told the media not to pay much attention to her.

According to the 23 July 2015 issue of Matichon newspaper, an administrator of Triam Udom Suksa School in central Bangkok told the media that Nattanan Warintarawet, aka Nice, an outspoken anti-coup student activist at the school, is mentally ill.

Matichon reported that the unidentified school executive said that Nattanan’s condition has not been treated properly for the last two years. The school staff added that the student’s parents had asked the school to take care of her and teach her as a normal student.

The statement from the school executive was made after Nattanan on 20 July 2015 submitted a blank exam paper in Civic Duty and wrote on her Facebook profile that she rejected the exam because the subject forces a narrow mind-set upon people.

She also wrote on Facebook a statement to Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the junta leader and Prime Minister, saying that her action is an act of civil disobedience against the authorities because the Civic Duty class is forced upon students by the dictatorial regime of the junta.

“The Civic Duty class is a subject that the dictatorial regime forced upon us. It enforces a narrow mind-set and denies freedom of thought which is crucial for democracy,” wrote Nattanan.

Nattanan Warintarawet (second right), along with Education for Liberation of Siam (ELS) members, reads a statement against the nationalistic 12-Thai values in front of the Ministry of Education last year.

According to the student, the first question on the Civic Duty exam portrays the 14 anti-junta activists recently released, most of whom are students, as threats to the Thai identity while the second question also equates people who supported the activists as harmful to ‘Thainess’.

“The determination of people who were calling for the release [of the 14 activists] is downgraded to one of the wrong choices in the exam as it is not fostering the Thai identity,” the student added in her message to the PM.

In her statement, Nattanan also criticised the nationalistic 12 Thai values, definitions of good citizens that the junta laid out after the coup, as hypocritical and manipulative since the junta themselves came to power by illegitimate means.

She added that there are many positive aspects of Civic Duty lessons and the 12 Thai values. However, she is against the manipulation of a narrow mind-set through the educational system and the fact that the junta is imposing its own definitions of ‘goodness’ upon others.

On Friday, 24 July 2015, Nattanan posted another statement on her Facebook profile saying that she does not want an apology from the teacher who claimed that she was mentally ill. She also urged that people should not blame other teachers of Triam Udom Suksa School who are not involved in the event.

On Thursday, Adm Narong Pipattanasai, Minister of Education, told the media when asked about Nattanan’s civil disobedience that the media should not make a big deal out of the matter since she is only one of 10 million students in the nation.       

Nattanan is a former Secretary-General of Education for Liberation of Siam (ELS), a progressive student activist group who have been campaigning for reform of the Thai education reform.

In December 2014, she was invited to talk in a program called ‘Investigating Hot Issues’ on the Army’s Channel 5, but was removed from the programme after she raised questions about the legitimacy of the May 2014 coup d’état with a member of the junta’s appointed National Reform Council.