Thai man sentenced to 35 years in prison for defaming royal family on social media

A 34-year-old Thai man was sent to jail for the next 35 years of his life on Friday by posting material on social networking site, Facebook, which defamed the Thai royal family.

This punishment is being termed the harshest one to be given for a crime under a law which protects Thailand’s super-rich monarchy from criticism. The punishment was handed out by a Bangkok military court which convicted the man on ten counts of lese majeste for posting photos and videos of the royal family on a Facebook account that reportedly belonged to another user.

The suspect’s name has been revealed as Wichia, but his surname was withheld so that his relatives do not have to be ostracized due to his crime. Wichai was accused of using the said account slander a former friend, instead, he got himself into trouble.

Such defamation cases are tracked by iLaw, a group which tracks royal defamation cases on the internet. “The court punished him with seven years per count. Altogether he was given 70 years, but it was reduced in half because he confessed,” said Yingcheep Atchanont from iLaw.

Lese majeste cases are normally kept highly secret and even the media is instructed to self-censor the details in order to avoid violating the law. Even in Wichia’s case, reporters were banned from entering the military court where his verdict was being read.

Since the succession of Thailand’s new king Maha Vajiralongkorn to the throne, analysts have been waiting how the new king deals with the lese majeste law, but it seems unlikely that things will change in the near future.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=54980

Posted by fatimaarshad on Jun 9 2017. Filed under Latest News, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.