The lights had gone down, the film was about to begin, and the young Thai couple were cosily ensconced in the big Bangkok cinema when the popcorn started flying. Most of it landed on the woman, hurled by a man to her right. Soon he was slapping her with a rolled-up film flyer, and screaming at her and her boyfriend to get out of the cinema.

As the rest of the audience joined in, jeering, throwing water bottles and urging on the assailant, the two made their retreat. The incident reached its climax this week when the boyfriend, Chotisak Onsoong, was charged with an offence that could land him in jail for 15 years. His alleged crime was simple: during the playing of the royal anthem which precedes all films in Thai cinemas, he had remained in his seat.

Mr Chotisak, a 27-year old businessman and political activist, is the latest person to be prosecuted under Thailand’s stringent lèse majesté laws, which make it a crime to “defame, insult or threaten” the King, Queen or heir to the throne.

Unquestionably, many Thais revere 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose image is seen in almost every office, many homes and on giant billboards hung every few hundred yards above Thailand’s roads. But others see the law as a tool of oppression and a means of intimidating those who peacefully question the status quo.

“Not standing up is not an offence against anyone – that’s what I think,” Mr Chotisak said in yesterday’s Bangkok Post, after being charged on Tuesday. “The public have the right to make a choice whether to rise or not . . . I would like to stress that what I did was not intended to insult or express vengeance to the King. I was simply enjoying my right to freedom of expression.” In Thailand academics struggle for the right even to discuss the monarchy, let alone criticise it. And in recent years there has been an increase in accusations of lèse majesté.

Mr Chotisak is that rare thing in Thailand – an overt Republican. His girlfriend is a Muslim, and objects to the idolisation of a human. But their ordeal was mild, compared with those of some dissenters.

In March last year a Swiss man received a ten-year prison term for drunkenly defacing posters of the King. He was pardoned and deported. Last summer a professor of philosophy at Silpakorn University in Bangkok, Boonsong Chaisingkananont, found himself under investigation for lèse majesté after setting the following examination questions for his first-year students. “Is the monarchy necessary for Thai society? How should it adapt to a democratic system? Discuss.”

Revered monarch

— King Bhumibol Adulyadej is accorded an almost divine reverence. His titles include Phra Chao Yu Hua (Lord Upon Our Heads) and Chao Chiwit (Lord of Life)

— The King’s PR team manages his image and makes much of his experiments with irrigation in the grounds of his palace, his sailing talents and gifts as a jazz musician

— Only lavish praise for the Royal Family can be published by law

— In 2006 Bangkok police estimated that almost one million Thais thronged the streets of the capital to celebrate the King’s 60th anniversary as monarch

— The King is currently the longest-serving monarch in the world

Source: Times archives

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