
In a non-descript five-story building surrounded by street food vendors and coffee carts in Thailand’s bustling capital of Bangkok, the movement to protect democracy is bubbling, steadily gaining steam.
It’s here that AJWS grantee partner iLaw works quite literally around-the-clock, fighting for the basic freedoms they believe are inherent to all human beings: the right to free speech and expression, the right to peacefully assemble, the right to a representative democracy.
In Thailand, none of these freedoms exist. While the country promotes itself internationally as a thriving Asian democracy, the truth is the Thai government is willing to jail, arrest and fine its citizens for expressing these basic human rights. This repression is deeply engrained in the Thai mentality, leading to a society where speaking out against the government, and especially the royal family, remains a taboo.
iLaw’s 12 full-time employees, and a dozen volunteers, are all dedicated to educating people and fighting against laws that severely limit Thailand’s freedoms of expression, speech and assembly. The country’s Article 112 is a lèse-majesté law — making it illegal to criticize Thailand’s monarchy in any way. A negative Facebook post, a speech at a protest and anything in between can land a Thai person in jail for years.
Below, step inside iLaw’s Bangkok office to learn more:
All this means that the work of the iLaw activists is, quite frankly, revolutionary. And the organization’s director, Yingcheep Atchanont (Pow), stands at the center of this revolution.
“Every night before bed, I think: What must be done that no one is doing yet? I think about the situation we face, and I think about what else we can do. And when I wake up, I get out of bed ready to do that thing,” says 38-year-old Pow. “Everyday, there’s a reason to wake up happily, get dressed, and go take action.”
“Time, patience, people”
Pow has been growing iLaw into a powerful force for justice since 2009, when it was founded as a platform to collect signatures on petitions advocating new laws. Back then, 10,000 signatures was a stretch. These days, iLaws reach is in the hundreds of thousands — a massive network of activists, volunteers, citizen advocates, petition-signers and protestors.

Today, the iLaw team serves as expert witnesses in trials of protestors. They gather hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions supporting legal amendments and new laws. They publish inclusive, educational materials about Thai politics — including 120,000 illustrated voting guides before the country’s 2023 parliamentary elections, contributing to a record high voter turnout of over 75%. When iLaw put out a call for citizens to monitor polls to ensure a free and fair election that year, over 100,000 responded, spread out over the entire country.
This massive growth wasn’t a coincidence.
The Thai government’s authoritarian streak exploded in 2020, when hundreds of thousands of young Thai citizens hit the streets in protest. The government responded forcefully, firing rubber bullets at crowds. They arrested protestors and charged thousands with ‘unlawful assembly’ and hundreds of people with Article 112. Today, dozens of people have been sentenced to jailtime; many other activists face upcoming trials.
“They say: Whoever holds a mic gets a charge. They arrest the speakers, the organizers, the drivers of the speakers. The people who bring the porta-potties to the protests could get charged as well,” says iLaw director Yingcheep Atchanont (Pow) about those charged with ‘unlawful assembly.’

In the few minutes a day Pow isn’t focused on the fight, he attends to hundreds of saplings on the rooftop of his apartment building in Bangkok — watering, trimming, replanting — until they are ready to be planted around Thailand.
“Seeds take years to grow into trees. They take patience, and many people playing a role: digging the soil, watering the seeds, caring for these plants,” he says. “And so, too, with our fight for democracy. Time, patience, people.”
“Small victories change lives, too”
Under Pow’s leadership, the iLaw team wakes up each morning ready to fight – for themselves, for their country, and, as they say often, “for our friends.” They don’t see this work as a paycheck — they are truly in the heart of the fight for democracy. Several of iLaw staff are among the hundreds in Thailand who currently face charges under the unlawful assembly decrees of 2020. Freedom of expression isn’t just a concept to them: it is a fight for their lives.
“We are happy with small milestones, small victories. They give us strength to keep fighting for the big ones,” says Pow. “This morning, in a case where we offered testimony, the court suspended someone’s lèse-majesté charge. We know this shouldn’t be a crime at all. But if one person doesn’t go to jail today, that’s good enough. Small victories change lives, too.”

In line with AJWS’s grassroots strategy, iLaw recently expanded to serve as an incubator for young political activists to form their own organizations — slowly but surely building a pro-democracy movement in Thailand that will one day reshape the country’s political landscape and society itself.
Working late at the iLaw office, Pow contemplates what he’s growing on his roof — and in his country.
“My ideology isn’t what I can achieve in the end. It’s what I can do now. So I’ll just keep watering them,” he says, then cracks a smile. “Trees are so much easier than people.”