House holds final debate on Amnesty Bill for political offenders

The House of Representatives began final deliberation today of the Peaceful Society Promotion bill, commonly known as the ‘amnesty bill’, which aims to exonerate all political offenders convicted, on trial, prosecuted or charged with a wide range of political offences in the past 20 years.

The sweeping amnesty does not, however, cover lèse majesté offences (Section 112 of the Criminal Code), corruption cases and criminal offences resulting in death or serious injury.

The main beneficiaries of the bill would be members of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), aka the red-shirt movement, the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), aka the royalist yellow-shirt movement, and the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), who were involved in political street protests in the past 20 years.

When promulgated into law, the amnesty bill would erase liability for political offences committed in the past 20 years. This means that, if the offenders were already convicted, their criminal records would be erased. If the cases are pending in courts, they would be dismissed. If the offenders are detained, they would be freed and the charges dropped.

There are more than 3,000 political offenders among the three political groupings, plus the so-called “Thalu Gas” mob, including 1,150 red-shirt members, 200 PAD protesters, 220 PDRC members and over 1,600 “Thalu Gas” street agitators who engaged in street violence in Bangkok in 2021.

The House approved the bill in its final reading in October last year. It was then forwarded to the Senate for consideration. The Senate has recently returned the bill, albeit with some minor amendments, to the House for final approval.

The Senate amendments reaffirm the original principle of the bill, that lèse majesté offences are excluded, but with an additional provision that the exclusion covers offenders who are under 18, as several of the activists charged with lèse majesté are under age.

Associate Professor Yutthaporn Issarachai, a political science lecturer at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, hailed the bill as the most sweeping amnesty in Thai political history, covering political protests in Thailand from 2005 to 2025.

He claims, however, that the exclusion of lèse majesté offences from the amnesty will not resolve political divisions in the country.