The Civil Court has fined three anti-election demonstrators almost one million for barricading the Interior Ministry and Department of Provincial Administration (DPA) buildings in Bangkok.

The Civil Court on Ratchadaphisek Road, Bangkok, on Wednesday, 23 December 2015, found Somsak Kosaisuk, Komsan Thongsiri, and Sawit Kaewwan, three key leaders of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) anti-election protest, guilty of barricading the Interior Ministry and DPA buildings during the PDRC protest prior to the 2014 coup d’état.

The three were ordered to pay about 940,000 baht plus 7.5 per cent interest per year for leading the PDRC protesters to the Ministry of Interior and the DPA buildings on 1 December 2013 and surrounding the buildings for five months.

The plaintiff in the case is the Department of Provincial Administration who accused the defendants of causing loss of property, such as electronic devices and the personal belongings of officials of the Department and operational losses of state agencies who could not perform tasks during the siege.

The plaintiff also accused the demonstrators of stealing guns from the state agency buildings. However, the court said that there was no evidence to prove the allegation.

The court dismissed the testimony of the three defendants that the demonstration was peaceful and was a protest against the former elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and the Amnesty Bill introduced by her political party, reasoning that the three clearly violated the law during the protest.

Wiroj Phumsirisawas, the defence lawyer of the three, said that his clients will submit a request to appeal the verdict.

Likewise, the Department of Provincial Administration will request an appeal because the Department is demanding 2 million baht in total in reparations from the PDRC leaders.

Last month, the former Civil and Political Rights Subcommittee of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) concluded that although the 2013-2014 anti-election protests of People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) were overall constitutional, they violated the rights of others.

Niran Pitakwatchara, the former head of the NHRC’s Subcommittee concluded that the investigations into the political violence in April-May 2010 and the 2013-2014 PDRC street protests found that there were serious problems concerning the right to ‘factual information’ and the refusal to acknowledge ‘the truth’ about political conflicts in the country.

He said that the Thai authorities have not learned how to handle conflicts appropriately, adding that ‘political conflicts’ should be dealt with by political mechanisms instead of martial law or the Emergency Decree.

Niran added that if the military steps into political conflicts, the problem might be exacerbated in a manner similar to the situation in the restive Deep South of Thailand, where armed conflict between insurgent groups and the state has been protracted for the last 10 years.

Furthermore, he said that overall the protests of the PDRC and several other anti-government groups to topple the Yingluck government were constitutional, but certain activities of the protesters infringed on the rights of others.