Incarcerated Voices: Unraveling Injustice in Thailand

By Tyrell Haberkorn
November 3, 2024

I am excited, and very honored, to be part of Engage Thailand and the broader community of activists and lawyers working on human rights in Thailand. Their commitment is humbling and clarity of vision inspiring.

There is a long history of political imprisonment – the locking up of those who dissent or otherwise challenge the rulers – in Thailand [and every country globally]. 

In Thailand, dissidents are prosecuted under various aspects of existing criminal law, and, in some eras, special laws. This prosecution is often both arbitrary and disproportionate.

Despite discussions within the Krisdika about the category of political crime, there has never been an official codification of the category of political prisoner within law. Depending on the era, political prisoners have been confined in specially-designated sites of detention for political prisoners, special sections of “regular” prisons, and “regular” prisons. 

But even though their bodies are chained, their thought cannot be contained. There is a long history of political prisoners who write in Thailand. They write letters. They write poetry. They write books. They write to pass the time. They write to remember. They write to record their lives behind bars. They write to tell a different story than the one the state tells about them. 

Our job – to be clear, the “our” refers to we who are outside prison, we who are concerned with injustice – is to act in solidarity with them. To do so, we must read their writing and listen to them. Our responsibility is to read, listen, and act. Today, as the number of political prisoners in Thailand is high and growing, doing so is urgent. To emphasize this urgency, let me trace the history of political imprisonment in Thailand. This is a story of both state repression – and the ways people always fight, and write, back.

Suphot Dantrakul, imprisoned between 1952-1957 with over 200 other socialists, Communists, and leftists during the Peace Revolt, wrote ปทานุกรมการเมือง ฉบับชาวบ้าน, or A People’s Political Lexicon, a collection of 37 essays on keywords such as law, king, history, utopian revolution and others, that outlines a different, more just and equal Thai and global future, based on lectures given by fellow prisoners.

Thongbai Thongpao, accused of being a communist and imprisoned between 1958 and 1966 with hundreds of others during the Cold War, wrote คอมมิวนิสต์ลาดยาว, or Communists of Lad Yao, a narrative history of what life was like in the fearsome Lad Yao prison. He documents the songs they sang, the vegetables they grew, the languages and other topics they taught one another in the commune they formed inside prison.

After the 6 October 1976 massacre and coup, thousands of people were arrested and detained. Most were released after several months, but 19, later reduced to 18, were charged with a list of serious crimes including lese majeste, i.e., Article 112, and treason. The Bangkok 18  were released after nearly two years following an amnesty passed by the dictatorship government – an amnesty that forgave the actual criminals – those behind the massacre and coup. They published a book, เราคือผู้บริสุทธิ์, or We are the Innocents, that included copies of the letters they had written while behind bars. They wrote to their families to tell them not to worry, to their loves to share their sorrow, and to their friends to ask how they were surviving outside. They emphasized the importance of the truth and naming the actual wrongdoers.

Then, after a long period of little use, a new surge of Article 112 cases began after the 19 September 2006 coup. This was the period in which Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul was sentenced to 18 years in prison for 55 minutes of speech deemed to defame the king and Ah Kong, or Amphon Tangnoppakul was sentenced to 20 years in prison for 4 SMS messages. Thanthawut Taweewarodomkul, or Num Red Non, a webmaster, was sentenced to over 13 years in an Article 112 and Computer Crimes Act case. While he was in prison, he wrote short stories, diaries, and analyses of what took place – ranging from what Songkran was like in prison and the conditions of Ah Kong’s death. His writing was disseminated on Prachatai, first in Thai and then in English translation. He chose to write fiction when reality cut too close.

The next intensification of Article 112 cases came after the 22 May 2014 coup by the National Council for Peace and Order. According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, at least 162 people were prosecuted for lese majeste during their 5-year regime. One of those was Prontip Mankhong, who was prosecuted and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for participating in the performance of a play, the Wolf Bride.

While in prison, she wrote fables about an adventurer, เจ้าเท้าเล็ก, or Little Foot. She sent these out carefully as paper letters. They were then disseminated via Prachatai, first in Thai and then in English. Upon release, she wrote the remarkable memoir,  มันทำร้ายเราได้แค่นี้แหละ, or All They Could Do To Us. The book is remarkable because it is is her account of daily life in prison – the endless counts, the inedible food, the hellish factory work, and yet also the solidarity of so many women, the joy of studying, the communal care of children, and the creative ways of making inedible food edible. She challenges her readers, directly, to read in new ways. She is not to be pitied.

And now to the present. Since the 2020 movement for democracy, over 2000 have been charged for political expression and protest. Nearly 300 people have been charged with lese majeste. There are currently 36 political prisoners, including 25 prosecuted for Article 112. As the cases move through the judicial process, this will likely increase.

As in earlier generations, many of those imprisoned are also writing. Writing for themselves, writing for Thai society – and writing to us outside. Their writing is different than those who came before due to how it is disseminated; the political context in which they, and we, write and live; and the community created and shared inside and beyond the bars.

The Bangkok Remand Prison, and some, but not all, other prisons are now using an electronic letter system called Domimail. Similar to previous paper systems, prisoners are allotted a sheet with a spare 15 lines on it. Letters are then read and censored by the authorities. But instead of being sent out through the paper mail system, they are sent out electronically. They are received, and read, immediately by those outside. Many letters are then shared by family, friends and activists via Facebook.

One of those imprisoned and writing is Khanun Siraphop Phumphungphut. He is a graduate student in political science currently serving a 2-year sentence following judgment by the Court of First Instance that he was guilty of violation of Article 112. Denied bail while he appeals over and over again, Khanun writes letters to his friends and family with analyses of books he is reading, his plans for continued graduate study upon release, and a firm call for the right to bail. In his letters, illustrated with vibrant drawings, he writes towards and imagines freedom for himself and all the members in the broader Thai polity.

The letters are not written and then published after the fact, when the author is safely outside the prison walls. They are published now, as life and cases unfold. So Arnon Nampa, the lawyer-poet who writes letters to his children that are then shared widely, is making a diary of his life and their life as a family. As his children pass key milestones in their lives, he does too. And they are not together.Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

What I most wish to emphasize is that Arnon, Khanun and others are also writing about, and to build, community. Arnon writes about the community of political prisoners inside; they drink coffee and discuss politics and ideas every morning. But he is also writing to those of us outside, who are part of a community of struggle. He is writing towards a democratic community that he, and we, will inhabit in the future. He writes in his letters that he eats when he can and exercises to remain strong to await the day when he will be outside. He stays strong, and so we must as well. 

And so, I conclude by asking you to join Engage Thailand, and even more so, to read, listen and circulate the stories and voices of political prisoners, and to act in every way that you can.