Like many nondescript hotels in provincial cities around the UK, the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham has been used for years by the British government to house asylum seekers trapped in administrative limbo. There have been hostile protests here before. But none, residents say, like the spasm of hatred on Sunday when rioters set fire to the building as more than 200 people cowered inside.

“I lived through the (2011) London riots when I was a kid,” said a man who saw Sunday’s violence unfold from his living room. “I don’t even think they were this bad. We saw them trying to kill people yesterday,” said the resident – who, like many, wished to remain anonymous amid the fear stoked by the violence.

The Rotherham riot was one of more than a dozen protests that followed a stabbing attack that left three children dead in the northern English town of Southport a week ago. In the torrent of misinformation that flowed from the tragedy, outrage boiled over into racist violence.

The turmoil represents the first major challenge for Keir Starmer, Britain’s new prime minister, who now faces a summer of rumbling discontent.

In his former role of England’s chief prosecutor, Starmer presided over Britain’s last major wave of riots in London and elsewhere 13 years ago, allowing courts to sit for 24 hours and for judges to hand down longer, tougher sentences. Now, Starmer has fewer resources at his disposal: pared-back policing, gummed-up courts, a shortage of jail cells and more polarized politics.

The day after the unrest, the hotel is a ruin. The ground is strewn with broken glass and burnt-out bins. Some kids ride past on bikes out of curiosity: “Nowt happens here. We wanted to see what’s going on,” says one youngster. Differences of opinion swiftly become visible. Some locals chant from their windows as they drive by: “Get ’em out.” Others are more sympathetic. A mother drives past, points at the building and says to her children: “They came here to be safe, not to be tortured like that.”

The Rotherham riot was planned for days but has its roots in discontent that has fomented for much longer. For years, politicians have made increasingly strident promises to curb migration to the UK; for the most part, those promises have fallen short. Fringe voices have stepped into the breach, stoking fear over “out of control” immigration and amplifying fears that migrants are the source of all the problems experienced by Britons who struggle with rising living costs, poor housing conditions and a lack of skilled jobs.

Asylum seekers first came to the hotel in 2021, after the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan. Its rooms have since filled with refugees from all over the world. All were evacuated after Sunday’s violence, with reports that some were forced to sleep in the nearby woods after they fled in fear.

Ninzr said he had lived in the Rotherham hotel since he arrived, but was at another processing center when the riot broke out. He was planning to return to the hotel, but got a text from his friend inside. “They say to me, you go back now. My friend a video sent for me. Big problem. Fire,” he said in broken English. He collected his bag before heading back to another processing center in Birmingham.

‘I’ve never felt more scared’

Britain’s asylum system is in a mess. Ninzr is one of almost 100,000 people waiting for their claim for asylum to be processed. The cost of housing them has also ballooned. In a speech last month, the new finance minister Rachel Reeves claimed the previous government had overspent on the asylum system by more than £6.4 billion ($8.12 billion).

In Rotherham, a notorious grooming scandal casts a long shadow. Hundreds of girls were abused by gangs of south Asian men over decades, and when the exploitation was finally exposed, authorities were accused of failing to deal with it, in part, over fears they would be accused of racism. Eventually the gangs were busted, many of the perpetrators jailed, and systems were overhauled. But lingering suspicions mean that concerns about immigration often bubble to the surface.

But residents in the nearby estate all said residents had caused no major problems, other than “a bit of litter.”

“There’s all these claims on Facebook that they rape women,” said the man who lived through the London riots. “My wife walks our dogs late at night. No issues. They never cause any issues. They’ve come from war-torn countries, they’ve got nothing to do. They play football in the car park. They got excited last year when it snowed. They’d never seen snow before in their lives.

“These people – they’re not animals, they’re not savages, they’re not doing these things to people, they’re just people that are trying to get a better life.”

Another woman, walking her dog through the hotel parking lot, said she’d never had problems from the hotel residents.

“I’ve never felt more scared to live on the estate than I did yesterday – and that was from our own people. So I’d rather take 100 of them living in there, than I would people who did what they did yesterday, living next door to them,” said the woman, who also declined to give her name.

She said her brother-in-law, a police officer responding to the riot, was injured after someone threw a rock at his arm. “He didn’t leave straight away, so he was there for hours with a suspected broken arm trying to hold them off.” He spent the night in hospital and was diagnosed with a broken elbow.

Others, though, condemned the riots but were frustrated that the sentiments behind them had been allowed to foment. A man standing outside his house, which looks onto the hotel, remembered when the first Afghan families arrived in 2021.

“The community couldn’t do enough for them. They were amazing people. No trouble whatsoever. Then they just put whoever they wanted here,” he said.

He said he felt unfairly branded as “far right” for expressing a desire for the government to “fix” its asylum system. “In the 1970s, I was fighting against the National Front… so if I’m far right, go on, tell me,” he said.

A shrunken state

“Some of them were 14-year-old boys just chucking sticks at police. It was just like an opportunity to be mischievous,” said one 17-year-old, Elliott Nuttall, who saw the violence spread to his nearby village.

On Monday, he had been planning to meet up with a friend, an Indian boy whose family moved to the UK when he was five years old. “His mum said to him, ‘No, you’re not allowed to go out,’ because it’s obviously not a good time for it.”

“Knowing there was going to be a protest a good three or four days prior, knowing what was going on nationally, I can’t believe how underpoliced they were.”

Videos from Sunday show an initially light police presence as hundreds of far-right rioters hurled stones at the hotel’s windows, pushed a burning garbage bin into a broken doorway, and stormed the building.

Responding to the wave of violence will be a challenge for Britain’s shrunken state. Starmer has pledged that “far-right thugs” will feel the “full force of the law,” but that force has been sapped by years of slashed budgets as successive Conservative governments imposed “austerity” on public services in the UK in the fallout from the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

In a YouGov poll published late last year, fewer than half of people thought police were “doing a good job,” down from 77% four years earlier. Police numbers were cut drastically under the previous Conservative government, although had recently begun to be restored.

Britain’s court backlog has also swelled, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic, making sentencing the convicted rioters more difficult. Jail space is also a problem: The new Labour government recently announced plans to release some prisoners early to free up space for new convicts.

Hundreds of people have been arrested following the riots, and on Tuesday a court in Sheffield, convicted the first of those arrested in relation to the violence at Rotherham, PA Media reported.

With more demonstrations planned for this week, do the residents near the Rotherham hotel fear more violence? “After seeing our community come out today, no,” said the man who lived through the London riots. “This community came out in numbers and looked after ourselves.”

“After seeing our community come out today, no,” said the man who lived through the London riots. “This community came out in numbers and looked after ourselves.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said “it may be just and moral” to starve 2 million Gaza residents until Israeli hostages are returned, but “no one in the world would let us.”

In a speech on Monday at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility in the town of Yad Binyamin, the far-right minister said Israel should take control of distributing aid inside Gaza and claimed that Hamas was in control of distribution channels within the strip.

“It is impossible in today’s global reality to wage war – no one in the world would let us starve and thirst two million citizens, even though it may be just and moral until they return our hostages,” he said, adding that if Israel controlled aid distribution instead of Hamas, the war would have ended by now and the hostages would have returned.

“You cannot fight Hamas with one hand and give them aid with the other. It’s his (Hamas’) money, it’s his fuel, it’s his civilian control of the Gaza Strip. It just doesn’t work,” he said.

Israel has control over aid that enters Gaza and aid groups are in charge of distributing it. While there have been some anecdotal reports from Gazans of Hamas stealing aid, it’s unclear how rampant it is. US Special Envoy David Satterfield said in February that no Israeli official had presented him or the Biden administration with “specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance.”

Israel is facing mounting criticism from aid groups and international organizations for restricting food aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. A United Nations statement, citing independent experts, indicated last month that famine has spread across the entire enclave. The experts accused Israel of conducting an “intentional and targeted starvation campaign,” which they termed a “form of genocidal violence.”

The International Criminal Court’s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of “starvation as a weapon of war,” among other allegations.

Netanyahu has strongly denied the allegations, saying they are based on a “pack of lies.” He has said that if Palestinians in Gaza aren’t getting enough food, “it’s not because Israel is blocking it, it’s because Hamas is stealing it.”

Israel has stated that it will not end the war until all hostages are freed and Hamas is eliminated. The conflict began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. The war has resulted in the deaths of more than 39,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities.

Smotrich on Monday advocated for Israeli control of the aid effort “as a part or as an essential means of realizing the defined goals of the war,” and said only minimal aid is needed in Gaza in the months and years to come.

“No one talks about (Israeli) military rule (of Gaza) now. No need to unclog sewers, no need for education, no need for welfare. Gaza in the next two years is (going to be) a war zone. You need food, some medicine and a minimum of sanitation – water, sewage. That’s it,” he said.

Every day for two months, Michael Ofer Ziv spent hours watching grainy, black-and-white footage of the Gaza Strip from a tiny room across the border.

As an operations commander, he was tracking Israeli forces inside Gaza and approving airstrikes.

Every day, he said, his unit had a certain quota to fill.

One by one, buildings blew up on his screen like a hypnotic reel of destruction.

At first, it was easy to forget that those images were real, and not just a video game playing on a screen. But the more he stepped out of that war room, the more he was exposed to the reality of those strikes.

One minute, he was looking at soundless footage of airstrikes he ordered; the next, he was on his phone watching unfiltered videos of Palestinians shrieking, carrying their loved ones who had been killed because of the Israeli military.

“This is happening in real life and has an actual effect on those people… at some point, your brain kind of cannot disconnect those two things anymore,” he said.

Once he connected those dots, there was no going back.

Like thousands of Israeli reservists, Ofer Ziv was called up to war following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others taken hostage, Israeli authorities said. He knew the army had to respond but was concerned about what that response might look like because of how widespread the language of revenge was.

His concerns were soon validated, he said.

In May, he and 40 other reservists signed an open letter declaring they would refuse to serve Israel’s war in Gaza again after the IDF launched a military offensive in Rafah, southern Gaza, where many of the civilians displaced by the conflict had fled.

They readily acknowledge that they represent a tiny minority of reservists who oppose the war, but they hope that their decision to take a public stand will spark a debate in Israeli society and put pressure on the government to prioritize a ceasefire deal.

“If we are deciding to go into Rafah instead of making a deal, I felt like it was a statement of us saying we care more about killing Palestinians and destroying Gaza than we (do) about actually finishing this, actually having a long-term solution, actually releasing the hostages,” Ofer Ziv said.

His conscience just wouldn’t allow him to continue. He couldn’t fathom the colossal number of casualties inflicted upon Palestinian civilians.

“There is also a decision here to not be as careful as we can be, or even be careless and disregard human life,” he said.

“I can count on my hand the amount of times we were told we are not allowed to shoot at something… the main vibe was we shoot first, ask questions later,” he added.

“The IDF does not aim to inflict excessive damage to civilian infrastructure and strikes exclusively on the grounds of military necessity and in strict accordance with international law,” it said.

‘Going to a very bad place’

And while Ofer Ziv was watching Gaza’s destruction from behind a screen, Yuval Green was witnessing it happen in real life.

Green served as a combat medic in Gaza between October and December last year. But a day before he was recruited for reserve duty, he was planning on leaving the army, he says, objecting to its treatment of Palestinians and the occupation of the West Bank.

The October 7 attacks made him delay his decision for the sake of his comrades.

Green said he felt his role was to protect the civilians who had been attacked on October 7 and thought the Israeli military would go in and target Hamas. He didn’t expect it to go on for as long as it did.

Just like Ofer Ziv, he was concerned before the war began about where it might go, because of how “furious” Israelis were.

“Ideas like killing the entire population of Gaza suddenly became almost normal… suddenly hearing our commanders say that we’re not going to be merciful this time… I felt like we were going to a very bad place,” he said.

Green recalled the immeasurable level of destruction he observed. While some commanders would order the demolition of houses for military purposes, most times it was because “they want to ruin Palestinian houses and they think that’s the right thing to do,” he said.

“They don’t really care about the lives of Palestinians… we’ve inflicted so much damage upon Gaza, something that would be beyond the imagination of any reasonable person… I can’t imagine how people would go back to living there,” he continued.

The final blow for him was when his commander ordered their platoon to burn down a house in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza, that he was sure would be rehabilitated after the war.

“I was trying to understand the reasons for that, if there is any military reason… and the commander just didn’t have good enough answers,” he said.

The next day, he hopped into a vehicle making a supply run out of Gaza, and never came back.

‘Losing so much’

Reservists who refuse to serve again, like Ofer Ziv and Green, could face serious consequences.

Disobeying an order and refusing to serve is both a disciplinary and criminal offense, according to Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard.

In normal circumstances, reservists are not called up for more than a month at a time, so they are usually not tried consecutive times, he added.

“What it really boils down to is who your commander is and how they will react to your decision,” Sfard, who is a former refuser himself, said.

“There is a very delicate balance here between two interests the army has. One is, punish severely those who refuse to serve to deter others from doing the same. The other is not to give too much publicity to those who are not ready to serve, because then it causes others to follow them too.”

Despite the risks, both Green and Ofer Ziv are committed to their decision.

Green lamented the way Israel’s military culture has dominated the public sphere, making anyone who criticizes the war or refuses to serve be viewed as a traitor.

Those in his platoon have heard him speak out against the war and the military’s conduct since he’s left Gaza. Some respect his opinion, even if they disagree with it. Others have said he is “darkening their names,” he said.

“I felt this was a really stupid idea. How can I harm your names by saying the truth? You harmed your name yourself by doing the type of things that were done there,” he said.

Even though he risked his life in Gaza, he is dumbfounded by the fact that his friends and family are more concerned about his safety now he’s spoken out than they were back then.

“We could end the war today. Israel as the stronger player… could choose to do it and is choosing not to for several reasons… we’re losing so much, the Palestinians are losing so much, for every minute it’s not being signed,” he said.

Similarly, Ofer Ziv thinks bringing the issue of refusing military service into the public debate might “wake people up” and let them know that it’s an option not to participate.

“We have so many systems that are built so we won’t have to question the position we are in… I do prefer to go to jail than to participate in what we’re doing in Gaza, but I prefer to do neither if it’s possible.”

A Nobel laureate known as the “banker to the poor” will aim to bring stability to Bangladesh after he answered a call by student protesters for him to temporarily lead the restive country following weeks of deadly anti-government demonstrations.

Muhammad Yunus, 84, will head an interim government following the toppling of the South Asian country’s prime minister and dissolution of parliament, according to the Bangladesh president’s press secretary.

Yunus is a social entrepreneur and banker who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering microfinance work that helped alleviate poverty in Bangladesh and was widely adopted around the world.

He is also a longtime critic of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who resigned earlier this week and fled the country following years of increasingly authoritarian rule.

Her departure brought jubilation to the student movement that forced her out – but also some trepidation over whether the military would step in to fill the leadership vacuum.

Who is Muhammad Yunus?

Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, a port city in southeastern Bangladesh, according to his profile on the Nobel Prize website.

He studied at Dhaka University, before receiving the prestigious Fulbright scholarship to attend Vanderbilt University in the United States, where he received a Ph.D. in economics.

In 1972, a year after Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan, he returned to teach at Chittagong University.

But disaster soon struck. A severe famine swept the country in 1974, wiping out an estimated 1.5 million people.

“I found it difficult to teach elegant theories of economics in the university classroom, in the backdrop of a terrible famine in Bangladesh. Suddenly, I felt the emptiness of those theories in the face of crushing hunger and poverty,” Yunus said in his 2006 Nobel lecture after receiving the award.

“I wanted to do something immediate to help people around me, even if it was just one human being, to get through another day with a little more ease,” he said.

He began providing small loans out of pocket to the poorest residents in his community – eventually founding the Grameen Bank in 1983, which would become a world leader in alleviating poverty through microlending.

The bank quickly grew, with different branches and similar models now operating worldwide.

Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, after lending a total of about $6 billion in housing, student and micro-enterprise loans, and specifically in support of Bangladeshi women.

He is also the founder of the Yunus Centre, a Dhaka-based think tank that helps develop new social businesses.

Some critics have cast a skeptical eye on Yunus and the Grameen Bank, arguing that some microlenders’ high interest rates had impoverished borrowers as the lenders made big profits from small loans.

Frictions with Hasina’s government

Over the years, Yunus has repeatedly gone head-to-head with former prime minister Hasina – who has accused him of “sucking blood from the poor,” according to Reuters.

Yunus briefly proposed forming a new political party in 2007 ahead of parliamentary elections – which Hasina decried at the time, saying political newcomers were “dangerous elements … to be viewed with suspicion,” Reuters reported.

Yunus ultimately did not move forward with forming the party.

In 2011, Bangladesh’s government-controlled central bank removed Yunus as managing director of Grameen Bank, saying he had exceeded the mandatory retirement age.

In the following years, Yunus was embroiled in multiple legal cases that his supporters said were the result of him being unfairly targeted by the authorities.

They include a defamation suit, a food safety case, and allegations of tax irregularities, which he denied.

In January, a court in Bangladesh sentenced Yunus to six months in prison for labor law violations – with the banker again denying any wrongdoing.

In a separate case, he was indicted in June on embezzlement charges.

Hasina’s government had insisted its actions against Yunus were not politically motivated, but the banker disagreed. It is not currently clear what will happen to those prosecutions now Hasina is out of power.

“I am not in the political field, there is no evidence that I am involved in politics,” Yunus said at the time, warning that Bangladesh was becoming a “self-destructing civilization.”

In a separate interview with Reuters in June, he said Bangladesh had turned into a “one-party” state, with the ruling party stamping out all political competition.

What comes next?

“People are celebrating on the street and millions and millions of people all over Bangladesh [are] celebrating as if this is our liberation day,” he said.

Addressing his message to the protest movement in Bangladesh, he added: “You have done a great job.”

But, experts say, Yunus faces a long and complicated road ahead as the government reforms itself.

His first challenge will be to re-establish law and order after the deadly protests of the past weeks, and to “address the trust deficit that exists in society” between the people and the state, said Mubashar Hasan, who studies Asian authoritarianism at the University of Oslo.

That includes deep public mistrust toward Bangladesh’s police, judiciary, and other state-run institutes, he said.

Another pressing task will be to declare free and fair elections – the lack of which is one reason Bangladesh was plunged into protests in the first place.

Yunus will also have to address the fallout from the past month, with Hasina’s government having cracked down with deadly force on the protesters with around 300 killed according to local media and agencies. Critics and human rights groups have accused authorities of using excessive violence, a charge the government denied at the time.

Now, the interim leader will likely face pressure to “start setting up some sort of judicial procedures that will address the gross human rights violation in the past few weeks and in the past decade,” Hasan said.

Niloy Biswas, a professor of international relations at the University of Dhaka, echoed this point – saying the government’s new leaders must “initiate investigations to ensure justice for hundreds of innocent people who have lost their lives.”

As the interim government moves forward, reforming Bangladesh’s economy will be a key task – where Yunus’ economic background could play a role. These reforms will be “vital” in combating corruption and helping the nation grow, Biswas said.

But he may face opposition in government, too – including from those who had supported Hasina, potentially including figures in the judiciary and law enforcement, Hasan said.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his group will respond to Israel “regardless of the consequences” to avenge the assassination of the group’s top commander a week ago, but keeping Israelis waiting is “part of the punishment.”

“Their government, their army, their society, their settlements and their occupiers are all waiting,” Nasrallah said. Keeping Israel waiting is “part of the battle,” he added.

The monthslong, cross-border exchange of fire intensified Tuesday morning after Hezbollah launched a “swarm” of drones towards what it said are military targets in northern Israeli cities. The Israel Defense Forces said one drone was intercepted, and the incident left several people injured, including one man who was seriously wounded in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya.

Israel struck a building in southern Lebanon earlier killing five people. The Israeli military said the building was used by Hezbollah.

The region is bracing for an expected response from Hezbollah and Iran for the assassinations of Shukr and Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last week.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guard promised Israel a “painful” response for the killing of Haniyeh in Tehran.

On Monday, rockets fired towards Al-Asad Airbase in Iraq injured several US personnel in what Pentagon said was an attack by Iran-backed groups.

“We might all respond at the same time, or maybe it’s better in the [resistance] axis for each [group] to respond in the way that suits them and with the targets they choose,” Nasrallah said.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin ordered additional military assets to the region, sending a carrier strike group, a fighter squadron and additional warships to the Middle East.

Officials across the world have been conducting intensified shuttle diplomacy in an attempt to contain Iran’s response. The Jordanian foreign minister travelled to Iran this week in a rare visit aimed at deescalating the tensions and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held calls with G7 foreign ministers to discuss an urgent need for de-escalation.

On Wednesday, foreign ministers representing Islamic countries, including Iran, will travel to Jeddah for an extraordinary meeting at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to discuss the assassination of Haniyeh.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Hamas announced Tuesday that its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, will replace Ismail Haniyeh as the head of its political bureau, it said in a statement.

The Hamas statement said that the movement announces “the selection of Commander Yahya Sinwar as head of the movement’s political bureau, succeeding the martyred leader Ismail Haniyeh, may God have mercy on him.”

Israel has publicly accused Sinwar of being the “mastermind” behind Hamas’ terror attack against Israel on October 7 – though experts say he is likely one of several – making him one of the key targets of its war in Gaza.

He has remained at large in the vast warren of tunnels trenched beneath Gaza, moving frequently and possibly surrounded by hostages as human shields, US officials believe.

Sinwar’s predecessor Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran last week, raising fears that Israel’s conflict with Hamas and its allies could develop into a multi-front, fully-fledged war in the Middle East.

The Iranian government and Hamas say that Israel carried out the assassination. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

A longtime figure in the Islamist Palestinian group, Sinwar was responsible for building up Hamas’ military wing before forging important new ties with regional Arab powers as the group’s civilian and political leader.

He was elected to Hamas’ main decision-making body, the Politburo, in 2017 as the political leader of Hamas in Gaza branch. However, he has since become the Politburo’s de facto leader, according to research by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

This is a developing story and will be updated.

At least one person has died and several people have been injured after a hotel collapsed in the popular wine village of Kröv in western Germany overnight.

There were 14 people in the building at the time of the collapse, the spokesperson said.

While the building is still partially intact, it is moving by 4 millimeters (0.16 inches) an hour, so rescue operations are proving to be difficult.

Around 250 firefighters, paramedics, police and technical relief workers, including special forces, rescue dog teams and drone units, are on site.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

A Thai court on Wednesday ordered the kingdom’s most popular political party to be disbanded, a verdict that delivers a major blow to a vibrant progressive movement and one that threatens to bring more political turbulence to Thailand.

The Move Forward Party won a stunning electoral victory in 2023, winning the most parliamentary seats on an anti-establishment reform agenda that drew huge support across the country, particularly among young people disaffected by years of military-backed rule.

The Constitutional Court in Bangkok ruled Wednesday that Move Forward should be dissolved, following a request from Thailand’s Election Commission, over the party’s campaign to amend lese majeste, the country’s notoriously strict royal insult law.

In January, the same court ordered the party to end its lese majeste campaign, accusing its leaders, including former prime ministerial hopeful Pita Limjaroenrat, of seeking to overthrow the constitutional monarchy.

Wednesday’s ruling goes further, dissolving the party and banning its executives from politics for 10 years – effectively disenfranchising 14 million people who voted for them and raising fresh concerns about the erosion of democratic rights in the kingdom.

Move Forward’s leaders have repeatedly said that dissolution will not stop their movement. Speaking to the Associated Press this week, Pita said they will continue to fight so that Move Forward “becomes the last party that joins the graveyard of political parties.”

It’s the first of two high-profile, politically sensitive cases with the potential to further entrench a power struggle between the establishment and progressives. Next week, the court is expected to rule on a petition seeking to remove Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office for appointing a lawyer who had served jail time to the Cabinet.

Crushing blow

Move Forward’s election victory was a decisive win for progressive parties and delivered a crushing blow to the conservative, military-backed establishment that has ruled Thailand on and off for decades, often by turfing out popularly elected governments in coups.

Ultimately Move Forward was prevented from forming a government because it failed to win enough support for its royal reform agenda in parliament, which heavily favors the establishment under a political system implemented by the previous ruling military junta.

Pita resigned as leader of the party, which became the main opposition.

Thailand’s turbulent political history has previously seen parties that have pushed for change run afoul of the powerful establishment – a nexus of the military, royalist and influential elites.

The purportedly independent election commission, anti-corruption commission and the Constitutional Court are all dominated in favor of the establishment.

Wednesday’s ruling will likely only further entrench the feeling for many young supporters that there is little hope for change within Thailand’s political system.

Progressive lawmakers have faced bans, parties have been dissolved, and governments have been overthrown. Thailand has witnessed a dozen successful coups since 1932, including two in the past two decades.

It’s the second time the court has ordered the dissolution of parties linked to Move Forward’s progressive movement.

Move Forward is the de facto successor to the Future Forward Party, which won the third most number of seats in the 2019 election. Shortly after the vote, Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved that party and banned its leaders from politics for 10 years.

That brought millions of young people out onto the streets across the country – sparking a nationwide youth-led protest movement in 2020 that saw the emergence of a new generation of young political leaders, many who openly criticized the monarchy and publicly questioned its power and wealth.

Lese majeste here to stay

The ruling could now ensure that no party or person would legally be able to push for amendments to lese majeste, known as Section 112, without violating the constitution.

The calls for reform of the monarchy electrified Thailand, where any frank discussion of the royal family is fraught with the threat of prison.

Criticizing the king, queen, or heir apparent can lead to a maximum 15-year prison sentence for each offense and sentences for those convicted Section 112 of the country’s criminal code can be decades long.

Hundreds of people have been prosecuted in recent years including Mongkol Thirakhot, who was sentenced to a record 50 years in prison in January for social media posts deemed damaging to the king.

Anyone – including ordinary citizens – can bring lese majeste charges on behalf of the king, even if they are not directly involved with the case. Move Forward pledged to reduce lese majeste sentences and limit who can make a complaint.

For years, human rights organizations and free speech campaigners have said the lese majeste law has been used as a political tool to silence critics of the Thai government.

Many of those who took part in the protests now face lese majeste charges and long jail sentences.

Legal Rights group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said that at least 1,954 people have been prosecuted for their participation in political assemblies since the start of protests in July 2020, with at least 272 people charged with lese majeste.

Prominent activist lawyer Arnon Nampa is currently serving eight years in prison for two lese majeste convictions.

In May, the death of a young Thai activist in pre-trial detention for lese majeste charges shocked many in the country and sparked renewed calls for justice reform.