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Justice in Southeast Asia Lab
8 hours ago
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New translation from the Article 112 Project and Justice in Translation Lab at UW-Madison!
** Letters from Prison: Year 1 (Nos. 1-139, 26 September 2023-25 September 2024), by Arnon Nampa (อานนท์ นำภา) **
Read/Download: https://bit.ly/4ahFKTe
25 September 2024 marked the first anniversary of the imprisonment of Arnon Nampa in Thailand. Arnon is a lawyer, human rights defender and poet being prosecuted under the draconian Article 112 of the Criminal Code, for peaceful speech and dissent calling for democracy and reform of the monarchy.
Article 112 defines the crime and stipulates the punishment for lèse majesté: “Whoever insults, defames, or threatens the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent shall be subject to imprisonment of three-to-fifteen years.” Innocent verdicts are very rare and bail is frequently denied even while appeals are ongoing. Arnon Nampa is one of nearly 300 people facing prosecution under Article 112 following the 2020 youth-led protests for democracy and reform of the monarchy. He has been accused of violation of Article 112 in fourteen cases and convicted and sentenced in six of these cases; his current total sentence is eighteen years, ten months, and twenty days in prison. All of these convictions are for peaceful expression and dissent.
Shortly after he was placed behind bars, Arnon began writing letters from prison. The 139 letters Arnon wrote during his first year of imprisonment are a record of the injustice of the judicial process and how one dissident is holding the line against this injustice. This record of his life and struggle is itself an essential history of Thailand, and Arnon is the historian who is writing its first draft.
Arnon sent his letters out electronically through the prison’s email letter service, Domimail, to his family who then posted them to Facebook to be read by fellow activists and supporters. The letters sent through the Domimail, like all letters to and from Thai prisons, are read by a censor first. The letters contain both the mundane and the extraordinary; very often, the mundane becomes extraordinary in the context of political imprisonment. After the first few letters, Arnon began to address his letters to his children, Pran and Issaranon, whose nickname is Kan. He shifts the primary pronoun he use to “Daddy,” and writes an account of his life and struggle for his children to read when they are older. Arnon began writing to his children because he was afraid that they would forget him, but he also worries about his own loss of memory.
Arnon’s occupation as a lawyer is ever-present in the letters as he talks about the unique experience of arguing cases while clad in a prisoner’s uniform and maneuvering with chains on his legs. His precise use of words reflects his poet’s sense of language. His clarity of vision and commitment to democracy are present in how he recalls past struggles and places his own life within history. Yet it is his identity as a father that most refracts and challenges the injustice he experiences. Noting that he is facing decades in prison if convicted in all of the Article 112 cases against him, and carefully marking his children’s birthdays and other milestones in his letters, Arnon acknowledges that he may still be behind bars by the time they grow up.
Arnon addresses his children, but the lessons about struggle, surviving repression, and solidarity behind and beyond the prison bars are relevant for all of us who call ourselves human. Arnon writes towards a time in which democratic transformation means he will be reunited with his family, a long-desired future that so far remains deferred.
Read/Download: https://bit.ly/4ahFKTe
.....
8 hours ago
·
New translation from the Article 112 Project and Justice in Translation Lab at UW-Madison!
** Letters from Prison: Year 1 (Nos. 1-139, 26 September 2023-25 September 2024), by Arnon Nampa (อานนท์ นำภา) **
Read/Download: https://bit.ly/4ahFKTe
25 September 2024 marked the first anniversary of the imprisonment of Arnon Nampa in Thailand. Arnon is a lawyer, human rights defender and poet being prosecuted under the draconian Article 112 of the Criminal Code, for peaceful speech and dissent calling for democracy and reform of the monarchy.
Article 112 defines the crime and stipulates the punishment for lèse majesté: “Whoever insults, defames, or threatens the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent shall be subject to imprisonment of three-to-fifteen years.” Innocent verdicts are very rare and bail is frequently denied even while appeals are ongoing. Arnon Nampa is one of nearly 300 people facing prosecution under Article 112 following the 2020 youth-led protests for democracy and reform of the monarchy. He has been accused of violation of Article 112 in fourteen cases and convicted and sentenced in six of these cases; his current total sentence is eighteen years, ten months, and twenty days in prison. All of these convictions are for peaceful expression and dissent.
Shortly after he was placed behind bars, Arnon began writing letters from prison. The 139 letters Arnon wrote during his first year of imprisonment are a record of the injustice of the judicial process and how one dissident is holding the line against this injustice. This record of his life and struggle is itself an essential history of Thailand, and Arnon is the historian who is writing its first draft.
Arnon sent his letters out electronically through the prison’s email letter service, Domimail, to his family who then posted them to Facebook to be read by fellow activists and supporters. The letters sent through the Domimail, like all letters to and from Thai prisons, are read by a censor first. The letters contain both the mundane and the extraordinary; very often, the mundane becomes extraordinary in the context of political imprisonment. After the first few letters, Arnon began to address his letters to his children, Pran and Issaranon, whose nickname is Kan. He shifts the primary pronoun he use to “Daddy,” and writes an account of his life and struggle for his children to read when they are older. Arnon began writing to his children because he was afraid that they would forget him, but he also worries about his own loss of memory.
Arnon’s occupation as a lawyer is ever-present in the letters as he talks about the unique experience of arguing cases while clad in a prisoner’s uniform and maneuvering with chains on his legs. His precise use of words reflects his poet’s sense of language. His clarity of vision and commitment to democracy are present in how he recalls past struggles and places his own life within history. Yet it is his identity as a father that most refracts and challenges the injustice he experiences. Noting that he is facing decades in prison if convicted in all of the Article 112 cases against him, and carefully marking his children’s birthdays and other milestones in his letters, Arnon acknowledges that he may still be behind bars by the time they grow up.
Arnon addresses his children, but the lessons about struggle, surviving repression, and solidarity behind and beyond the prison bars are relevant for all of us who call ourselves human. Arnon writes towards a time in which democratic transformation means he will be reunited with his family, a long-desired future that so far remains deferred.
Read/Download: https://bit.ly/4ahFKTe
.....
https://www.facebook.com/pipob.udomittipong/posts/10162109170886649
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