The 2015 report “Freedom in the World” – published annually by Freedom House – downgraded the country from “partly free” to “not free” based on events in 2014. Thailand will almost certainly stay in this category in the 2016 report and may even find its score slips further, given that the generals have gifted themselves almost unlimited power, civilians continue to be tried in military courts, and several harsh sentences have been handed down for the notorious lèse-majesté law, which prohibits criticism of the monarchy. Recent months have also seen the new and worrying trend of high-profile prisoners dying in police custody. So it seems Thailand will remain “not free” throughout 2016 – a designation that will be hurtful to Thais, who often claim that the country’s name means “the land of the free.”