The impressive Thai pro-democracy protests is unrelenting. Underpinning it the desire of a people to undo the shackles of an unproductive monarchy. But the movement would be long dead without the obstinacy of key advocates who walk a tightrope to keep the movement alive. This article by Bruno Kaufmann and Carlo Pisani is published by Swissinfo.ch. Here is an excerpt:

An impressive black-and-white picture, by Italian photographer Jan Daga, shows an August 2020 protest: lines of young students walk hand-in-hand down a Bangkok street followed by cohorts of heavily armed police. At the front of the scene, reporting live from the battleground of Thai democracy, stands a sole journalist with a smartphone – Pravit Rojanaphruk.

The 51-year-old journalist works as a senior staff writer for Khaosod English (“fresh news”). Formerly, he wrote a regular column for the Nation, an English-language newspaper in the country, but was pressured to resign due to his political opinions following the 2014 coup d’état. Since then he has gained a reputation as one of the most prominent champions of democracy and freedom of expression in South Asia – and has consequently been called an “enemy of the people” and arrested several times.

In a conversation as part of SWI swissinfo.ch’s Global Voices of Freedom series, Rojanaphruk mentions repeatedly a key stumbling block for democracy in his country – the so called “lèse majesté” law, which bans all criticism of the monarchy.

Read the full article through this link.