BANGKOK – A Thai court on Tuesday sentenced a former civil servant to a record 43 years and six months in prison for violating the country’s strict law on insulting or defaming the monarchy, lawyers said.
The Bangkok Criminal Court found the woman guilty of 29 counts of violating the country’s majestic law for posting audio clips on Facebook and YouTube with comments deemed critical to the monarchy, the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group said.
The court initially announced its 87-year sentence, but cut it in half because it pleaded guilty to the crimes, the group said.
The sentence, which comes amid an ongoing protest movement that has seen unprecedented public criticism of the monarchy, was quickly condemned by human rights groups.
“The court’s verdict is shocking and sends a signal of chills that not only will criticism of the monarchy not be tolerated, it will also be severely punished,” said Sunai Phasuk, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Violation of Thailand’s lese majeste law – widely known as Article 112 – is punishable by three to 15 years’ imprisonment on a charge. The law is controversial not only because it has been used to punish things as simple as liking a Facebook post, but also because anyone – not just royalty or authorities – can file a complaint that can tie up the accused person in court cases. for years.
During the past 15 years of political unrest in Thailand, the law has often been used as a political weapon, as well as in personal revenge. Real public criticism of the monarchy, however, until recently was extremely rare.
That changed during the past year, when young protesters calling for democratic reforms also called for reform of the monarchy, which has long been considered an almost sacred institution by many Thais. Protesters said the institution is irresponsible and has a lot of power in what should be a democratic constitutional monarchy.
At first, the authorities let many comments and criticisms go without charge, but since November they have arrested about 50 people and accused them of lese majeste.
Sunai said Tuesday’s sentence was probably to send a message.
“It can be seen that the Thai authorities are using the lese majeste process as a last resort in response to the youth-led democratic uprising that seeks to restrict the king’s powers and keep him within the limits of constitutional rule. Thailand’s political tensions will now go from bad to worse, ”he said.
After King Maha Vajralongkorn took the throne in 2016, after his father’s death, he informed the government that he did not wish the law of lese majeste to be used. But as protests escalated last year and criticisms of the monarchy got tougher, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha warned that a line was crossed and the law would be used.
The protest movement has lost momentum since the arrests and since new restrictions on public meetings have been implemented after an increase in coronavirus cases.
Thai Human Rights Lawyers identified the woman convicted on Tuesday only by her first name, Anchan, and said she was about 60 years old.
His case goes back six years, when anti-establishment sentiment was growing after a 2014 military coup led by Prayuth. She was held in prison from January 2015 to November 2018.
She denied the charges when her case was first heard in the military court, where crimes of lese majeste were prosecuted for a period after the coup. When her case was transferred to the criminal court, she pleaded guilty in the hope that the court would sympathize with her actions, because she just shared the audio, didn’t post or comment on it, she told local media on Tuesday when she arrived to the court.
“I thought it was nothing. Many people have shared and heard this content. The guy (who did the content) did it for so many years, ”said Anchan. “So, I didn’t really think about it and I was very confident and not being careful enough to realize at the time that it wasn’t appropriate.”
She said she worked as a civil servant for 40 years and was arrested a year before retiring and with conviction she would lose her pension.
What is believed to have been the longest sentence of lese majeste was handed down in 2017, when a military court sentenced a man to 35 years in prison for posts on social media considered defamatory to the monarchy. The man, a salesman, had initially been sentenced to 70 years, but had his sentence cut in half after pleading guilty.