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Academics support anti-hazing lecturer bullied by students

More than 100 academics and activists throughout the country issued a joint-statement to support an embattle lecturer in Isan, Thailand’s Northeast, who received threats and online bullying after expressing her disapproval over hazing rituals.

On Friday, 28 August 2015, 120 academics and activists from various universities signed a joint-statement, urging Mahasarakham University to give protection to Lalita Hanwong, a History lecturer of the Faculty of Humanities of the university, after she was intimidated by many students for criticising hazing rituals, which is a part of the SOTUS (Seniority, Order, Tradition, Unity, and Spirit) culture common in many Thai universities.

Some of the signatories are Kasien Tejapira, a renowned political science lecturer of Chulalongkorn University, Shintaro Hara, a linguistic scholar of Prince Songkla University in Pattani, Angkhana Neelapaijit, a renowned human rights defender.   

On 24 August 2015, Lalita posted a message on her facebook profile, criticising the hazing rituals of the Faculty of Music of Mahasarakham University after she was that the freshmen of the faculty were ordered to shave their heads and wore banner and funny cloths both in and outside the university.  

“Just try and do a research on it, if the students who had been forced to go through these hazing rituals can study better or have more social life, you can shower me with complaints” wrote parts of the message that she posted on facebook.

After such message appeared, she was bullied with harsh comments online mostly by students of the Music Faculty of Mahasarakham University. Some students even posted messages threatening to kill or to rape her with picture of weapons on social network.

The conflict became publicised when the ANTI-SOTUS facebook page shared the information about the online threats issued against Lalita and issued a statement, saying that the pro-SOTUS students should be investigated and held responsible by the university.  

There has been no statements from the rector or lecturers of the Faculty of Music of the university. On the contrary, some lecturers reportedly supported the pro-SOTUS students.

In the letter to support the embattled lecturer, the academics and activists stated that Mahasarakham University must ensure that the university is a venue where people can express opinions freely without fearing repercussions.

“As academics were stand for freedom to express one’s opinions freely and culturally in the universities which is instrumental to the generation of knowledge and personnel to serve societies. We support the lecturer who has become the victim in the event,” wrote the joint statement.

After facing threats and intimidations, Lalita said that she only wanted to merely encourage the students and other people to think whether the hazing activists and SOTUS cultural really create bonds within the educational institutions.

“From the [my] student activists, after we have all grown up we still have good connections because we treated freshmen equally with reasons without force. Personally, I think that the SOTUS culture does foster love among any group better because I grew up without it and it proved that people love each other more voluntarily than by force,” Lalita told Prachatai.

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