Thailand’s taboo-breaking demonstrations are about more than the right to criticize the monarchy without fear of going to prison: Protesters want taxpayers to control investments and real estate worth tens of billions of dollars.
Thailand’s royal family has long been the biggest shareholder in two of the country’s most valuable companies, Siam Commercial Bank PCL and Siam Cement PCL, as well as vast plots of land in central Bangkok that house luxury shopping malls, high-end hotels and towering office buildings. That portfolio, as confirmed by recent public records, has put the monarchy in business with many of Thailand’s tycoons, affirming the king’s position at the apex of power.
What’s new is the level of public discourse about it, fed by disquiet over legal changes in 2017 and 2018 that were approved by a military-appointed parliament without public debate. Now the issue has become one of the rallying cries for protesters who march regularly through Bangkok’s streets, numbering at times in the tens of thousands.
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