(Staff article from the ABC NEWS Australia on 19 January 2021)
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| 87 yrs jail for sharing a facebook post on Crown Prince. |
Her sentence comes at a time of unprecedented
youth-led demonstrations in which protest leaders have openly criticised the
monarchy, risking prosecution under Thailand's strict lese majeste law, which
carries a 15-year penalty for each violation.
Anchan Preelert, 65, pled guilty to 29 separate violations of sharing and posting clips on YouTube and Facebook between 2014 and 2015, her lawyer, Pawinee Chumsri, told Reuters. Ms Preelert was initially sentenced to 87 years but, because she acknowledged her violations, the court halved the punishment, the lawyer said.
"This is
the highest prison sentence ever in a lese majeste case," said Pawinee,
who is from the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights group. Violating Thailand's lese
majeste law — known widely as Article 112 — is punishable by three to 15 years'
imprisonment per count.
The law is
controversial not only because it has been used to punish things as simple as
liking a post on Facebook but also because anyone — not just royals or
authorities — can lodge a complaint that can tie up the accused person in legal
proceedings for years.
During
Thailand's past 15 years of political unrest, the law has frequently been used
as a political weapon as well as in personal vendettas. Actual public criticism
of the monarchy, however, had until recently been extremely rare.
That changed
during the past year, when young protesters calling for democratic reforms also
issued calls for the reform of the monarchy, which has long been regarded as an
almost sacred institution by many Thais.
The protesters
have said the institution is unaccountable and holds too much power in what is
supposed to be a democratic constitutional monarchy. Authorities at first let
much of the commentary and criticism go without charge, but since November
about 50 people have been arrested and charged with lese majeste.
Mr Sunai said
Tuesday's sentence was likely meant to send a message. "It can be seen
that Thai authorities are using lese majeste prosecution as their last-resort
measure in response to the youth-led democracy uprising that seeks to curb the
king's powers and keep him within the bound of constitutional rule," he
said. "Thailand's political tensions will now go from bad to worse."
After King Maha
Vajralongkorn took the throne in 2016 following his father's death, he informed
the government that he did not wish to see the lese majeste law used. But as
the protests grew last year, and the criticism of the monarchy got harsher,
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha warned a line had been crossed and the law
would be used.
The protest
movement has lost steam since the arrests and new restrictions on public
gatherings that followed a surge in coronavirus cases. A support group, Thai
Lawyers for Human Rights, identified the woman who was sentenced only by her
first name, Anchan, and said she was in her 60s.
The court
initially announced her sentence as 87 years, but reduced it by half because
she pleaded guilty to the offenses. Her case dates back six years, when
anti-establishment sentiment was growing after a 2014 military coup led by Mr
Prayuth.
She was held in
jail from January 2015 to November 2018. She denied the charges when her case
was first heard in military court, where lese majeste offences were prosecuted
for a period after the coup.
When her case
was transferred to criminal court, she pleaded guilty with the hope that the
court would have sympathy for her actions, because she had only shared the
audio, not posted or commented on it, she told local media on Tuesday on her
arrival at court. "I thought it was nothing. There were so many people who
shared this content and listened to it. The guy (who made the content) had done
it for so many years," Anchan said.
"So I
didn't really think this through and was too confident and not being careful
enough to realise at the time that it wasn't appropriate." She said she
had worked as a civil servant for 40 years and was arrested one year before
retirement, and with a conviction would lose her pension.
What is believed
to have previously been the longest lese majeste sentence was issued in 2017,
when a military court sentenced a man to 35 years in prison for social media
posts deemed defamatory to the monarchy. The man, a salesman, had initially
been sentenced to 70 years, but had his sentence halved after pleading guilty.
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| Crown Prince of Thailand. |
