Military officers reportedly searched a house of a well known anti-junta student activist currently facing an arrest warrant.
The Resistant Citizen, an anti-junta activist group, posted on its facebook page that at around 3 pm on Thursday, 14 January 2016, 5-6 military officers from an unidentified unit came to search the house of Sirawit Seritiwat, a 23-year-old student activist from Thammasat University.
The military officers went into the house without a search warrant and carried out a search while only the grandmother of Sirawit was present in the house.
Resistant Citizen added that the officers took a box which the activist uses to store train tickets which he collected with them and told his grandmother that if he will not report himself to a police station, he will not be granted bail once he is arrested.
Yesterday, the Military Court of Bangkok issued arrest warrants for Sirawit Serithiwat, 23, Chonticha Jaeng-rew, 22, Chanoknan Ruamsap, 22, Abhisit Sapnaphapan, 29, Korakoch Saengyenpan, 23, and Thanet Anantawong, 25.
The warrants were approved after the police of Railway Police Station in Thonburi requested the court for permission to arrest the activists.
The six are among 11 young activists who are accused of violating the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Order No. 3/2015, which prohibits political gatherings of five or more persons, after they participated in a failed excursion to Rajabhakti Park in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province to investigate corruption allegations at the park on 7 December 2015.
Last week on 8 January 2016, Sirawit and five other activists went to the police station. However, they refused to report, saying that they did nothing wrong and were only exercising their rights as active citizens.
Out of the 11, Sirawit and Cholticha have already been charged with violating the junta’s political gathering ban as a result of their previous political activities.
Military officers detain Sirawit and other anti-junta activists en route their trip to Rajabhakti Park in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province on 7 December 2015 (file photo)