BANGKOK — Sirawith Seritiwat, a democracy activist, was running to catch a bus when the men attacked, battering his head until his eye socket was fractured, his nose was broken and his eyes were bathed in blood.

Sitting near his hospital room in Bangkok, with the glare of fluorescent lights and the reek of disinfectant in the air, Patnaree Chankij, Mr. Sirawith’s mother, said she considered her son lucky.

“I’m smiling because my son is not dead,” she said. “He is fearless and will keep fighting for what he believes in.”

Over the past few months, as Thailand has been transitioning from rule by military junta to rule by a newly elected leadership dismissive of many tenets of democratic governance, a band of activists has argued that the country deserves more than flawed elections and cowed citizens.