Exiled Thai academic accuses military junta of threatening his family
Originally published at Asian Correspondent on February 25, 2016
The Thai military has allegedly threatened the family of self-exiled academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun, Associate Professor at the Center for South East Asian Studies at Kyoto University and currently a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge.
The scholar wrote on his Facebook profile on Wednesday evening that army officers have appeared at his house and called one of his sisters, demanding them to tell Pavin to "stop all activities overseas" – especially "talking about the monarchy" – or else his "family will have to bear the consequences" and demanded his entire family to "report themselves at the army camp".
AFP's Southeast Asia correspondent Jerome Taylor tweeted Thursday that junta spokesperson Colonel Winthai Suvaree told the agency that he had no information on authorities' contact with Pavin's family.
Pavin is known for his outspokenness on Thai politics – including the monarchy – and even more so since the Thai military summoned him among hundreds of other academics, politicians and journalists in the aftermath of the 2014 coup, while he was based in Japan at that time. He openly refused to comply and, in his typical mischievous online manner, replied mockingly on Facebook if he could send his pet dog instead.
Shortly thereafter, the military junta revoked Pavin's passport, practically exiling him. But that didn't stop him from slamming them in numerous opinion pieces in the foreign press and also traveling abroad, giving lectures and participating in academic events discussing the current state of Thai politics. One of these events was this Wednesday on the future of the Thai monarchy at Oxford University, which was the likely cause for the Thai military's alleged harassment of Pavin's family. In the past, Pavin has accused Thai authorities, through their consulates and embassies, to have attempted to sabotage these public events either by discouraging Thai students from attending or pressuring the hosting universities to cancel.
Furthermore, Thai authorities have attempted to ask Japan to extradite Pavin on the premise that not only did he not comply with the military summons, but also that some of his articles were deemed "insulting to the monarchy" or lèse majesté, an offense punishable with up to 15 years in jail and rigorously (ab)used under the current military government. The junta has also asked other countries like New Zealand and France for extradition of lèse majesté suspects that have fled Thailand.