“At first I had a cold. The prison was crowded. It rained. We did not have enough food. I lost 13 kilograms,” Rangsiman Rome, 24, said.

The seven were among 13 activists who were arrested on June 23 for violating bans on political gatherings and campaigning against the charter draft. They were arrested while distributing handouts concerning the draft.

The six other activists requested bail and were released while the remaining seven including Rangsiman refused to do so, saying they had not done anything wrong.

They were subsequently jailed for 12 days at Bangkok Remand Prison after police requested a detention order. After the completion of the first round of detention, they were freed on Wednesday when the Military Court dismissed a police request for a second round of detention.

Rangsiman, a post-graduate law student at Thammasat University, said he and the other jailed activists were sick when they were released. He said he vomited while being transported from prison to court last week but his request to have his case heard quickly given his condition was rejected.

He said he had to get a tetanus shot because his ankles were cut by shackles he was forced to wear during the trip to the court.

“We all were feeling unwell and Rangsiman was the sickest,” said Somsakol Thongsuksai, 20, the youngest of the seven. “The prisoners there said these symptoms were normal and call it ‘khai cook’.”

Somsakol said prison fever was the result of adjusting to prison conditions, and he admitted to The Nation that he was frightened by his first experience in jail.

The seven activists were kept in an area for new prisoners, said a corrections officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Zone One is like a kindergarten where the officers do not restrict them much,” he said.

He said officers carefully looked after the seven activists because their case is high profile and “observed by the public”, adding that officers did not treat the activists like “bad guys”. However, the activists did have to follow prison practices, he added.

Rangsiman and Somsakol said they did not have enough food in prison because of the long interval between dinner and breakfast. “We have dinner at 2.30pm and breakfast at 7.30am the next morning. It was 17 hours when our stomachs were empty,” Rangsiman said. The seven were separated when they slept.

Zone One comprises 13 rooms that each house 40 people and one big room for up to 200 people, Rangsiman said. The prisoners slept on the floor with three blankets each.

“With those conditions, we could not sleep well. Often we were woken in the middle of the night,” Rangsiman said. Corrections officers at first made the activists clean restrooms, walls and rooms, he said.

However, the activists realised they did not have to do chores because they had not been convicted of a crime, Ransiman said, adding that they were reassigned to the library after they objected to prison staff.

Rangsiman and Somsakul met other prisoners and learned that several of them had ended up in jail because they didn’t know how to deal with complex legal processes.

As time went by, some preferred staying in jail because they felt society does not accept what they have gone through, given that prison conditions do not support normal daily living conditions and rehabilitation of prisoners.

Both activists said with the experience of being in the prison, they have learned about flaws in and the ineffectiveness of legal procedures and the corrections administration.

The activists said they still do not understand why they were arrested because of handing out leaflets.

“It’s sad to see the apparent failure of some justice processes. And I cannot stand seeing it going like this,” said Rangsiman.

“It makes me feel more eager to fight and will do anything I can to shake injustice.”