{"id":2286,"date":"2022-11-23T10:45:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T03:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/teen-activists-landmark-lese-majeste-conviction-sets-worrisome-precedent\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T14:34:45","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T07:34:45","slug":"teen-activists-landmark-lese-majeste-conviction-sets-worrisome-precedent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/news\/2022\/11\/teen-activists-landmark-lese-majeste-conviction-sets-worrisome-precedent\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen activist\u2019s landmark l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 conviction sets worrisome precedent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Responding to the news that child human rights defender Thanakorn \u201cPetch\u201d was convicted of l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 for participating in a peaceful protest when they were 17 years old and sentenced to a maximum of three years of detention in a training centre, Amnesty International Thailand executive director Piyanut Kotsan<\/strong> said:<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cPetch is the first person to be convicted of l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 or royal defamation as a child under 18, setting up a worrying precedent and creating a chilling effect for young protesters across Thailand who may want to express themselves by taking part in peaceful demonstrations.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Background:<\/strong>

On November 22, the Central Juvenile and Family Court delivered its ruling in the first case of l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 involving a child human rights defender, LGBTI+ activist Thanakorn \u201cPetch\u201d. On 6 December 2020, 17-year-old Petch joined a peaceful protest in the Wongwian Yai area of Bangkok, Thailand. During the demonstration, Petch delivered a speech calling for reforms to the monarchy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The court sentenced Petch to two years\u2019 imprisonment, which was then commuted to \u201ctraining\u201d at a vocational and training center by the Department of Juvenile Observation and Protection of the Ministry of Justice or any other place determined by the court. The court determined that Petch shall be held in official custody to undergo the training for the minimum of one year and six months and the maximum of three years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Juvenile and Family Court has the authority to commute a prison sentence and order to keep a \u201cjuvenile\u201d in custody for training over a period of time fixed by the Court, but not exceeding the amount of time by which the juvenile attains the age of 24 years. Section 143 of the Juvenile and Family Court Procedure Act permits that the court can determine the minimum and maximum period of training and make a decision to release the \u201cjuvenile\u201d any time during this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petch has now been released on bail set at 30,000 THB (around $830).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petch started their activism as a secondary school student back in 2020. Since then, they have been vocally calling for the improvement of social welfare and educational equality, the protection of human rights defenders, and the halt of judicial harassment against peaceful protesters in Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020, an estimated 283 protesters under the age of 18 have been charged with a range of offenses, the majority under an Emergency Decree Act passed during the pandemic that has since been repealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others face charges of l\u00e8se majest\u00e9, sedition and the dissemination of what authorities deem to be \u201cfalse\u201d information. Nearly 200 of these cases are still active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thailand is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Both international human rights treaties guarantee children\u2019s rights to freedom of expression and freedom of peaceful assembly under Article 19 and Article 21 for the ICCPR and Article 13 and Article 15 for the CRC, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN Human Rights Committee, the treaty body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the ICCPR, has expressed concerns regarding l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 laws. It stated that all public figures, including those exercising the highest political authority, are legitimately subject to criticism and political opposition and that criticism of state institutions should not be prohibited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Universal Periodic Review in 2021, Thailand has received various recommendations to uphold children\u2019s rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, including by avoiding the detention of minors for exercising these rights and ending arrests and prosecution of children under the l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 law and other legislation related to security and public order. The Thai government has to date always rejected these recommendations, which would have strengthened their commitments to the country\u2019s international human rights obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information, please contact:<\/strong> press@amnesty.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Responding to the news that child human rights defender Thanakorn \u201cPetch\u201d was convicted of l\u00e8se majest\u00e9 for participating in a peaceful protest when they were 17 years old and sentenced to a maximum of three years of detention in a training centre, Amnesty International Thailand executive director Piyanut Kotsan said: Background: On November 22, the Central Juvenile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_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":[1588,1587,1589],"resourceType":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","location-southeast-asia","location-thailand","location-world"],"datePosted":"November 23, 2022","mlpRelationships":{"1":3131,"2":2286},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286","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=2286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=2286"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2286"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=2286"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}