AnalysisAsiaDemocracyFeaturesGlobal IssuesICGLaw & OrderLeadershipPoliticsProtestSecuritySocietyWorld
Calls to Curb the Crown’s Writ Put Thailand on Edge
Young pro-democracy protesters have roiled Thai politics with a previously taboo demand to reform the country’s monarchy.
As the state resists change, and conservative citizens recoil, the risk of violence is growing.
- Matthew Wheeler
- ICG
The standoff poses Thailand’s existential question: is the king sovereign or are the people?
At a small, rain-soaked pro-democracy rally in Thailand’s north-eastern city of Nakhorn Ratchasima in early October, three young women staged a performance entitled “Who Killed the People?”
Appearing first as a trio of anonymous figures bound together by tangled cords, through silent dance and mime their roles emerged: monarch, military and people. In the play’s