As the nation celebrates Thai New Year, activist inmates can't spend their holidays with loved ones

It was a touching scene when Sansern Srioonruen started to bow while raising his palms to wai his mother sitting on a small stool in front of him. It was an act he had always performed for his mother at home during the Songkran festival.

But this year, the location is different. Mr Sansern and his 88-year-old mother, Sa-ard, had to perform the traditional Thai New Year ritual in a Bangkok Remand Prison visiting room -- separated by a glass wall.

This is his second absence from the family's annual family reunion in Nakhon Pathom, where he lived with his mother and his youngest brother.

The third of eight children, Mr Sansern was rounded up on March 9 last year over his alleged connection to non-fatal explosions at the Bangkok Criminal Court on Ratchadapisek Road. Sixteen people were arrested, and the witness hearings are scheduled to start in June and continue until the end of this year.

No physical contact is allowed at the prison, even between family members. To talk to his family, Mr Sansern talks into a red telephone on one side of the glass wall while his brother is on the other.

The detainee was reassured by his 46-year-old brother, Pinyo, that the annual merit-making ceremony for his late father -- held on the first of day of the Songkran festival since 2011 -- would proceed as usual.

Mr Pinyo passed on the phone to their mother who assured her inmate son the annual donation of 10,000 baht to Huay Plu Hospital in Nakhon Chaisi district, a contribution he has been making since the death of his father five years ago, would be taken care of this year.

"I don't have to talk to him much. Just let him see me every week or so. If there's an issue, he will talk to his brother," said Mrs Sa-ard, who was driven 40km by her youngest son from their Nakhon Chaisi home where they plant coconut, mango, banana, and betel nuts for a living.

"He's a man of non-violence. He only cares for others' grievances and doesn't care if he's inadequately fed. I'm proud that my brother has been pro-democracy," said Mr Pinyo.

Mr Sansern missed out on a political science degree from Chiang Mai University as he was helping students and farmers targeted by right-wing security authorities during the 1970s. He was in the jungle with the (now-defunct) Communist Party of Thailand for some seven years after 1975.

"Life here is still manageable; life in the jungle was much harder. I'm taking it as a learning experience," said Mr Sansern.

Indeed, he embraces all the routines -- waking up at 4am, helping prepare meals, and cleaning dishes every day. But he still has his eyes set on taking dhamma lessons and applying for a naktham tri (the elementary Buddhist teaching exam).

Meanwhile, in another zone of the prison, Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, 54, was spending a lonely Songkran for a fifth year.

Mr Somyot, a labour unionist-cum political activist, was arrested near the Thai-Cambodian border on April 30 2011, five days after he launched a campaign to collect 10,000 signatures required for a parliamentary review of lese-majeste laws.

He was charged with violating the Criminal Code's Article 112 for allowing, as editor, the publication of two articles written by another person in the magazine Voice of Taksin. The 15 requests for bail by his family have been turned down by the court.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention deemed his 20-month-long pre-trial detention a violation of international human rights laws.

Mr Somyot is the nation's longest-serving lese majeste prisoner. His 11-year jail term handed down in January 2013 was upheld in September 2014 and has not yet been reviewed by the Supreme Court.

"It might be a small prison in here, but on the outside, it seems to be nothing but a big prison," said Mr Somyot, who said it was sad that while neighbouring Myanmar is ascending to democracy, Thailand appears to be doing the opposite.

The activist used to keep his Songkran holidays free of work so he could spend time with his wife and two children. His children, now grown-up, visit him every alternate month while his wife visits twice a month.

"It's painful for a family to see each other through a glass wall for five years," he said.

Source:
courtesy of BANGKOK POST

by Achara Ashayagachat

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