BANGKOK
A Thai anti-coup campaigner - who for weeks defied a summons from the regime with the Facebook post “Catch me if you can” - has been released on bail after almost a month in detention, according to Thai media Thursday.
Sombat Boonngamanong, a maverick political activist, had been accused of lese-majeste - an offense carrying jail terms between 3 and 15 years - by a resident of the northeastern city of Roi Et.
He was taken to a court in the city earlier this week having just been released on bail by Bangkok’s military court on charges of inciting unrest, violating the Computer Crimes Act and defying the National Council for Peace and Order – as the junta is formally named.
Boonngamanong's wife posted 300,000 baht (US$9,200) bail on Tuesday evening to secure bail, reported the Bangkok Post on Thursday.
On release, the court ordered him not to take part in activities that might instigate unrest and forbade him from travelling overseas without approval.
In the May 22 coup's aftermath, the 47-year-old was one of the first summoned, but instead went into hiding, becoming the main leader of anti-coup protests.
Through Facebook and Twitter posts, he organized gatherings in Bangkok, many of which featured the three-fingered sign of resistance from the French Revolution which has since become more representative of the “The Hunger Games” series of films. A May 28 hint on his Facebook page triggered a protest by 200 people outside a Bangkok department store, the military sending troops scrambling.
He was arrested June 6 during a military raid on a friend's house in eastern Chonburi province. He is facing military court for having defied the summons.
Prior to the latest coup, Boonngamanong founded the "Red Sunday" group, created in 2006 to oppose the September coup, which ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra – the elder brother of recently deposed Premier Yingluck. The movement’s symbolic red color was picked up in 2007 by the new larger "Red Shirts," who also use the name the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).
After the military's repression of Red Shirt demonstrators in May 2010 - during which over 90 people were killed - Boonngamanong organized meetings with activists in different cities around the kingdom every Sunday, despite constant fear of arrest.
Since Boonngamanong’s arrest, the anti-coup protests have abated, and only individual or small groups’ acts of resistance defy from time to time the restrictions on political expression imposed by the junta.
www.aa.com.tr/en
