ฝากช่วยกันรณรงค์ด้วยครับ คุณ Ann Norman นักสิทธิมนุษยชนอเมริกันรณรงค์ให้ปล่อยตัวคุณพอร์ต วงไฟเย็น ซึ่งกำลังป่วยหนัก ถูกจับคดี 112 ไม่ได้ประกัน ทุกคนมัวแต่สนใจข่าวเพนกวิน แต่คนป่วยหนักที่จะกำลงตายคือ คุณพอร์ต ตามลิ้งนี้ครับ
Change.org
Ann Norman started this petition to Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
ALERT: We are doubly alarmed about the unjust depravation of liberty of Port Faiyen (Parinya Cheewinkulpatom), a former computer programmer and musician and songwriter for the band Faiyen. 1) First he was arrested on a charges of lese majesty for a few Facebook posts in 2016, and has been denied bail, which is an outrageous injustice in and of itself. 2) But additionally, he was taken into custody by a government that has long been trying to kill him and his band (and did succeed in assassinating 8 people in his immediate social circle including a former housemate), AND he is in delicate heath, battling a set of life-threatening medical conditions that includes pancreitus, nerve inflammation, and diabetes. Indeed he almost died in 2019 and had just finally regained the weight lost in that setback when he was arrested.
He needs to be immediately released with all charges dropped, but at the very least should be granted bail, so he can be returned to the care of his regular physician. Please communicate with the Thai Government about this case
Port has been deprived of his liberty over a few Facebook posts in 2016 with so-called “lese majesty” content. Even if we pretend there was a magical time when monarchs were always honorable, today it is obvious there is no majesty left to lese. Indeed the students protesting today want to investigate a set of 9 assassinations believed to have been ordered by King Vajiralongkorn, and some are even raising the issue of sex trafficking (The king has a harem of 20 women and threw one of his favorites in jail for a whole year before bringing here back to the harem). Port’s Facebook posts are not about this, because in 2016 it hadn’t happened yet. But for 10 years now, Port has been busy subtly--and after fleeing the country, not so subtly--pointing out the dangers of unaccountable government.
Port is most famous for a song called “Paw,” meaning “Father” or “Dad.” The song starts out sounding like a tribute to King Bhumibol, who citizens used to refer to as “Paw.” But the song quickly takes an unexpected turn as Port specifies that he has only one father and other people are not his father. The tribute is to his own father. It is a clever and touching song, and ends with a good question: If someone can’t be criticized, how can we know they’re good?
Other songs take this same approach, mixing humor and earnestness to state some undeniable fact. Port tries to be inclusive, reaching out to all Thais across both sides of the political spectrum. He is the missing piece to Faiyen band, now in France. It would be a shame to send a musician to prison whose prolific songwriting is so well respected (and well-documented in English). His international fame as a Thai protest musician is eclipsed only by that of Rap Against Dicatotorship (who won the 2019 Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent).
The ordeals of Faiyen band have been well documented. Members of the band, at different times after the coup of Prayut Chanocha in 2016, fled from Thailand to Laos. There they lived on sparse donations from supporters while running a prodemocracy underground internet radio station with about 2 million viewers at its peak. Two of their associates had already been assassinated, one each in 2016 and 2017, when in December, 3 more were assassinated (Surachai’s team), this time with bodies showing up in the river. At the end of December, while Faiyen band was still investigating what had happened to their disappeared friends, Port had to sneak back into Thailand for special medical treatment unavailable in Laos. He had an operation but did not recover well from it. He lost so much weight he looked like a skeleton. Throughout 2019 Faiyen band was itself receiving very pointed death threats, warning them to turn themselves in for lese majesty or be killed like the rest. Scores of international articles were written on this story. When in May 2019, I got a text telling me Port along with all of Faiyen band had been captured outside Thailand, I immediately knew it wasn’t true (because Port was in Thailand and he no longer looked like Port). A few minutes later, the clarification came in: it was Siam Teerawut who had been forcibly disappeared (mistaken for Port because of his round face) along with the famous Sanam Luang and another member of his team. Siam, a young man, was former housemate of Port’s! Siam actually had contributed (without credit) to several famous Faiyen songs, making him an informal member of Faiyen band.
Because he was so sick at the time, Port was not able to get on a plane and go to France at the moment all the other band members were admitted to that country. We hoped he would soon follow, but later he decided his illness made those plans unrealistic. He lived quietly with his family caring for him and paying his medical bills. Some days he couldn’t feel his fingers, but when he was strong enough, he would get up and play guitar. Then he began to regain his appetite and put on weight, with his friends cheering on every report of added kilos. He continued to talk about contingencies for “when I die or an arrested.” This was the status of things when he was suddenly arrested.
It is glaringly obvious, that Port is not safe in the hands of the regime. For humanitarian reasons, he must be immediately released.
The Thai jails are notorious for murdering healthy lese majesty prisoners (Prakrom Warunprapa and Suriyan Sucharitpolwong, who reportedly died of “suicide” and “a blood infection” soon after their arrests in the same incident (October and November 2015)) and for callously leaving sick ones to die without treatment (Ampon Tangnoppakul or Uncle SMS in May 2012). Others become critically ill in jail (Da Torpedo developed undiagnosed cancer in jail and died soon after her serving out her sentence, in May 2020). No one believes the regime will give Port the all the medial care he deserves and most suspect they will deliberately withhold care.
The regime should avoid a huge human rights scandal on the order of that of Uncle SMS and release this famous Thai protest singer, and long-time target of oppression, immediately.
