The Move Forward Party on Thursday submitted a bill to give amnesty to political demonstrators since February 2006, expecting it to restore national unity.
Party leader Chaithawat Tulathon said that the bill was written to pardon all political demonstrators prosecuted since Feb 11, 2006, when the People’s Alliance for Democracy started its protests against the administration of then-premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
The proposed amnesty would cover thousands of political demonstrators who had faced punishment for violating various laws due to their political motivations, Mr Chaithawat said.
“The Move Forward Party believes that Thai society can restore peace, happiness and unity … if the people who took part in political expression … are freed from prosecution,” he said.
The opposition party proposed that parliament president Wan Muhamad Noor Matha form a committee to identify the offences that would qualify for amnesty.
“We did not specify offences because there are so many cases and the timeframe is broad,” Mr Chaithawat said.
However, the bill would not spare those involved in insurrection, causing harm to lives, or abuse of power in security crackdowns, he said.
If political parties cooperate, he said, the bill can be passed.
More than 4,400 people have been charged with offences relating to political rallies since 2006, according to a Reuters calculation, which includes cases that have since concluded.
Disruptive political demonstrations have been frequent over the past 17 years, starting with the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), the so-called yellow shirts who opposed Thaksin. Their protests eventually led to the coup that overthrew his majority government in September 2006.
After an election in December 2007 brought another Thaksin-aligned party to power, PAD activists returned to the streets again. Protests that began in May 2008 ultimately led to the week-long seizure of Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports, estimated to have cost the economy at least 3 billion baht.
When the Constitutional Court ruled in December 2008 to dissolve the People’s Power Party, a Democrat-led government took over. Huge protests in 2010 by the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), the so-called red shirts, led to a violent military crackdown in May 2010 that left 90 people dead.
Thida Thavornseth, a leading figure in the red shirt movement, told Reuters that more than 2,000 of its supporters had been prosecuted over the years.
In 2013 and 2014, the yellow shirts were back on the streets. The focus of their anger was an attempt by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to pass an amnesty bill that would benefit her exiled brother. The disruptions caused by the Bangkok Shutdown movement set the stage for the military coup in May 2014.
Five hundred people aligned with conservative political groups, including the yellow shirts, have been charged with various offences from 2006-13, said Puangtip Boonsanong, a lawyer involved in many of those cases.
In 2020, a new protest movement began to take shape, consisting mainly of young people disillusioned with the military-aligned government and the establishment in general. Some of its members went a step further to call for reforms of the monarchy.
That led to the revival of the use of Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the lese-majeste law, under which more than 250 people have been prosecuted since mid-2020. Another 116 have been charged with sedition.
All told, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, 1,928 people have been prosecuted in connection with political rallies in the past three years.