In Thailand the Red Shirts have a fairly bad record when it comes to staying inside the law as well as ethical behavior. From time to time the mob mentality gets the best of them and they end up breaking major laws. Some of the laws that they break even come with the death penalty, and that seems to be the case once again.
We have all seem mob mentality depicted in one way or another. It is when the momentum of the mob reacts on impulse be it right or wrong. Some times it is called Sheep Mentality where everyone just follows the leader be it in runs on the stock market, or just run because everyone else is running and we will figure out why later. In most cases those behaviors are impulse driven with little logic behind them if any at all, and often that can lead to dire consequences.
In the 2010 Red Shirt riots the Red Shirts proceeded to burn down sections of Bangkok, and as a result many Red Shirts are sitting in jail waiting for their day in court. The range of possible fines ranges from a few years to life or even the death penalty. Needless to say the behavior of the Red Shirts after 2010 that reflects their mentality as a whole will come into consideration for the 2010 crimes.
So fast forward to 2013 and 2014 and we have more of the same behavior where there seems to be a trail of violence and occasional bodies strewn about. We have now come to a Red Shirt movement powered by mob mentality to split Thailand. We have touched on this before in that how disrespectful that is to the King as it is the Kingdom of Thailand. But now others have gotten involved and identified it as one of the highest crimes in Thailand if not the highest crime.
With the Constitution of any country being the highest law in the land, and the first sections or articles are the most important, Separating the Kingdom is a violation of section 1 of the Constitution. So in short it is Thailand’s highest law if you consider it in that context. The Thai Constitution reads as such:
Section 1. Thailand is one and indivisible Kingdom.
To violate this law gives you the choice of life in prison or the death penalty.
So suddenly the Red Shirts are doing their best to back pedal saying that is not what we mean, but unfortunately there is too much evidence that says otherwise. It is also possible that the Thaksin supporting Government did not object to this as it was clear and obvious for all Thais to see. It was not until the Thai Military filed charges on the separatists did the Government say they did not support it.
However there is certainly negligence on the part of the Government as this movement has been underway for several months. That is yet to come to a head where certain members of law enforcement obviously did not do their job and were way too busy trying to get trumped up charges filed on the peaceful and legal Anti-Thaksin protesters.