They are members of a folk music group living communally in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos, but they are in fear for their lives.…
They are members of a folk music group living communally in the Southeast Asian nation of Laos, but they are in fear for their lives.
The musicians from the band Faiyen fled their homes in neighboring Thailand in 2014, afraid of arrest after a military coup overthrew their nation’s elected government.
Their music was their crime.
Drawn into the polarized politics of Thailand’s last decade, some of their songs mocked the monarchy, a sacred institution as far as many Thais — and the law — are concerned.
For their heresies, they now believe they may be kidnapped or killed. Their fears are not without justification.
Since last December, six fellow Thai exiles in Laos associated with anti-monarchist views have disappeared in suspicious circumstances and their families presume they are dead. The mutilated bodies of two washed up on the Thai side of the Mekong River. A veteran far-left activist who in the 1970s was in the jungle with the Communist Party of Thailand disappeared along with them.
Two other activists in Laos, rights groups say, disappeared in 2016 and 2017.
All of the exiles were associated with Thailand’s Red Shirt movement of democracy activists, many of whom are also supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted by in a 2006 military coup that triggered a long and sometimes violent struggle for power between supporters of the populist billionaire and the army-backed royalist establishment.
That charged political atmosphere led some Red Shirt supporters to begin openly questioning the monarchy’s role in Thai society and politics, a grave taboo. Thai law mandates prison terms of three to 15 years for insulting the monarchy, and courts have proven to have broad interpretations of what constitutes an insult.
The junta that took power in the 2014 coup — and remains in place today — did so with a vow to crack down on anti-monarchists, even for a time moving all so-called lese majeste cases from civilian court to military courts.
While no evidence has been presented that the junta is involved in the disappearances in Laos — and even those in exile stop short of directly accusing the government — activists and rights groups say someone is seeking extrajudicial retribution.
