BANGKOK (AP) – A court in Thailand on Tuesday sentenced a former official to a record prison sentence of 43 years and six months for violating the country’s strict legislation on insulting or defaming the monarchy, lawyers said.
Thai criminal court has convicted the woman on 29 charges of violating the country’s majesty law for posting audio snippets on Facebook and YouTube with comments considered critical of the monarchy, the group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said .
The court initially announced her sentence as 87 years, but reduced it by half because she pleaded guilty to the offenses, 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 rights groups.
“Today’s court ruling is shocking and sends a chilling signal that not only will criticism of the monarchy be tolerated, but that it will also be severely punished,” said Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. said.
Violation of Thailand’s Majesty Act – widely known as Article 112 – is punishable by three to 15 years’ imprisonment per count. The law is controversial, not only because it is used to punish things as simply as keeping a message on Facebook, but also because anyone – not just royals or authorities – can lodge a complaint that the accused has for years in lawsuits.
During Thailand’s last 15 years of political unrest, the law is frequently used as a political weapon as well as in personal sales. However, until recently, real public criticism of the monarchy was extremely rare.
This has changed in recent years, when young protesters calling for democratic reforms also called for the reform of the monarchy, which has long been considered by many Thais as an almost sacred institution. The protesters said the institution was not accountable and held too much power that was supposed to be a democratic constitutional monarchy.
Authorities initially released many of the comments and criticisms at no cost, but since November, about 50 people have been arrested and charged with majesty.
Sunai said the sentence Tuesday was likely intended to send a message.
‘It can be seen that the Thai government uses persecution of majesty as their last resort in response to the democratic uprising led by the youth, which seeks to limit the king’s power and place him within the bounds of constitutional rule. keep. “Thailand’s political tension will now go from worse to worse,” he said.
After King Maha Vajralongkorn took the throne in 2016 after the death of his father, he informed the government that he did not want to see the law on majesty applied. But as protests escalated last year, and criticism of the monarchy worsened, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha warned that a line had been crossed and that the law would be used.
The protest movement has lost steam since the arrests and since the increase in coronavirus cases has put new restrictions on public gatherings.
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights identified the woman sentenced on Tuesday only by her first name Anchan, saying she was in her mid-60s.
Her case dates back to six years, when anti-establishment sentiment increased following a military coup in 2014 led by Prayuth. She was held in jail from January 2015 to November 2018.
She denied the charges when her case was first heard in the military court, where the biggest offenses 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 only shared the audio, did not post or comment on it, she said on Tuesday upon her arrival. told the local media in court. .
“I thought it was nothing. There were so many people who shared this content and listened to it. The man (who made the content) has been doing this for so many years, “Anchan said. I did not really think it through and was too confident and was not careful enough to realize at the time that it was not appropriate. . ”
She said she had worked as a civil servant for 40 years and had been arrested one year before retirement, and that she would lose her pension.
It is believed that previously the longest sentence of majesty was handed down in 2017 when a military court sentenced a man to 35 years in prison for posts on social media considered defamatory for the monarchy. The man, a salesman, was initially sentenced to 70 years, but his sentence was halved after pleading guilty.
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Associated Press video journalist Tassanee Vejpongsa contributed to this report.