Danupha Kanateerakul, better known as Milli, is a Thai rapper who had a breakout hit, “Phak Khon” (“Chill Out”) in early 2020, on the cusp of the pandemic, when she was just 17. Her songs, seasoned with trash talk and “Luu” slang favoured by gay and transgender Thais, are about as far from politics as you can get.

But Milli recently found herself at the centre of a sulphurous cloud of public anger, fear and recrimination forming around the government’s handling of Covid. Thais are getting worried, and increasingly vocal, about record case numbers and deaths, lockdown measures that are dimming hopes of an economic recovery and what many see as a botched vaccine response. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha’s government is now trying to shut them up. 

Milli was summoned to a Bangkok police station and warned she faced charges of “insult by publication”, one of several laws Thailand’s rulers use to suppress free speech. She got off with a THB2,000 ($60) fine for defaming Prayuth.