Responding to the record prison sentence handed to Anchan P. by a Thai court today after conviction for l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 and computer-related crimes, Amnesty International\u2019s Asia-Pacific Regional Director, Yamini Mishra, said:<\/p>\n\n\n
\u201cThis shocking <\/span>case<\/span> <\/span>is yet another serious assault on <\/span>Thailand\u2019s vanishing space for <\/span>free<\/span>dom of<\/span> expression.<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\u201c<\/span>D<\/span>efamation <\/span>sh<\/span>ould <\/span>n<\/span>ever <\/span>incur<\/span> a <\/span>criminal <\/span>conviction <\/span>in the first place, let alone <\/span>an extremely long <\/span>jail sentence like today\u2019s.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\u201c<\/span>Anchan<\/span> has already faced appalling treatment since being arrested in 2015, including pre-trial detention for years, <\/span>some of which<\/span> incommunicado<\/span>.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\u201c<\/span>The manner of <\/span>her<\/span> <\/span>sentencing is also <\/span>chilling<\/span>. <\/span>The way authorities have evidently sought to maximi<\/span>z<\/span>e the punishments by <\/span>multiplying<\/span> criminal charges <\/span>se<\/span>nds a<\/span> <\/span>clear <\/span>message<\/span> <\/span>of deterrence <\/span>to Thailand\u2019s 50 million internet users.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\u201c<\/span>The Thai a<\/span>uthorities <\/span>must<\/span> <\/span>halt <\/span>their<\/span> <\/span>crackdown on <\/span>peaceful <\/span>dissent.<\/span> <\/span>The <\/span>government<\/span> must<\/span> repeal or<\/span> <\/span>significant<\/span>ly <\/span>revise <\/span>legislation <\/span>which<\/span> gag<\/span>s<\/span> <\/span>free<\/span>dom<\/span> <\/span>of<\/span> expression<\/span> both on<\/span>–<\/span> and offline<\/span>,<\/span> <\/span>such as <\/span>the <\/span>l\u00e8se<\/span> <\/span>majest\u00e9<\/span> <\/span>offence <\/span>and the Computer Crime Act<\/span> <\/span>used <\/span>in today\u2019s verdict<\/span>.\u201d<\/span> <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
Background <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anchan P., a food seller and former civil servant, faced 29 counts<\/a> of \u201cinsulting the monarchy\u201d, or l\u00e8se majest\u00e9, under Article 112 of Thailand\u2019s Criminal Code and provisions of the Computer Crime Act. She was arrested in January 2015 and detained for nearly four years until November 2018, when she was released on bail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anchan was initially detained incommunicado in a military camp for five days before her transfer to a detention facility and repeatedly denied bail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court convicted Anchan for allegedly sharing and uploading clips on social media of an online talk show alleged to have made defamatory comments about the monarchy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anchan pleaded guilty to the charges and received a consecutive three-year sentence for each of the 29 l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 offences, or 87 years – the harshest conviction under Article 112 to date. The sentence was reduced by half to 43 and a half years owing to Anchan\u2019s guilty plea. Article 112 of the Criminal Code carries between three and 15 years\u2019 imprisonment per violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Amid mounting peaceful protests throughout 2020, the Thai authorities resumed the use of l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 charges in November of that year, having brought no new charges under the law since March 2018.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than 220 people, including children, have faced criminal charges<\/a> for their alleged involvement in\u202fpeaceful protests throughout 2020.\u202f Of those, dozens have been charged with sedition and l\u00e8se majest\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thailand is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to freedom of expression under Article 19. The UN Human Rights Committee, the treaty body responsible for interpreting the ICCPR, has stated that \u201cimprisonment is never an appropriate penalty\u201d for defamation-related offences such as l\u00e8se majest\u00e9. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u0e40\u0e23\u0e35\u0e22\u0e19\u0e23\u0e39\u0e49\u0e40\u0e1e\u0e34\u0e48\u0e21\u0e40\u0e15\u0e34\u0e21\u0e40\u0e01\u0e35\u0e48\u0e22\u0e27\u0e01\u0e31\u0e1a\u0e41\u0e2d\u0e21\u0e40\u0e19\u0e2a\u0e15\u0e35\u0e49<\/a>
\u0e1a\u0e23\u0e34\u0e08\u0e32\u0e04\u0e2a\u0e19\u0e31\u0e1a\u0e2a\u0e19\u0e38\u0e19\u0e41\u0e2d\u0e21\u0e40\u0e19\u0e2a\u0e15\u0e35\u0e49<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Responding to the record prison sentence handed to Anchan P. by a Thai court today after conviction for l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 and computer-related crimes, Amnesty International\u2019s Asia-Pacific Regional Director, Yamini Mishra, said: Background Anchan P., a food seller and former civil servant, faced 29 counts of \u201cinsulting the monarchy\u201d, or l\u00e8se majest\u00e9, under Article 112 of Thailand\u2019s Criminal Code and provisions of the Computer Crime Act. She was arrested in January 2015 and detained for nearly four […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1585],"location":[1587],"resourceType":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","location-thailand"],"datePosted":"January 20, 2021","mlpRelationships":{"1":2459,"2":2084},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}