{"id":1794,"date":"2013-10-02T13:13:40","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T12:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/up\/wordpress\/2013\/10\/02\/thai-woman-jailed-for-five-years-for-insulting-royals\/"},"modified":"2022-10-29T17:02:18","modified_gmt":"2022-10-29T16:02:18","slug":"thai-woman-jailed-for-five-years-for-insulting-royals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.egeve.com\/en\/thai-woman-jailed-for-five-years-for-insulting-royals\/","title":{"rendered":"Thai woman jailed for five years for insulting royals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced a woman to five years in jail for breaching the kingdom’s strict royal defamation laws in the the second such conviction in days. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under controversial lese majeste rules, anyone convicted of insulting the Thai king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nopawan Tangudomsuk was found guilty of lese majeste and breaking computer crime laws with comments posted on a popular website in 2008, an official from Bangkok’s court of appeal told AFP, without giving further details.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

She was initially acquitted in a 2011 trial when prosecutors failed to prove she was behind the posting on the Prachatai site — whose editor has been convicted in a separate case of failing to remove a comment critical of the monarchy.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The appeal court decided to reverse the ruling” in Nopawan’s case, a court official said, without giving details, but adding she was “found guilty of violating article 112” — the kingdom’s royal defamation law.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling comes a day after the founder of the royalist “Yellow Shirts” was sentenced to two years in prison by the same appeal court under lese majeste laws.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sondhi Limthongkul, one of Thailand’s most controversial political figures, was convicted after prosecutors appealed an earlier acquittal over remarks quoting a speech by a political rival in 2008.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “Red Shirt” activist whom Sondhi quoted was jailed for 15 years in 2011 for comments made during political rallies.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The royal family is a highly sensitive topic in politically turbulent Thailand, where King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 85, is revered but has been in ill-health for several years.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The kingdom has come under fire from rights groups and media freedom campaigners who say its defamation laws have been heavily politicised and pose a threat to freedom of speech.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics say many of those charged over recent years are linked to the Red Shirts, who are loyal to ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two months of mass street protests by the Reds against the previous government in early 2010 triggered the kingdom’s worst civil violence in decades, with 90 people killed, mostly in a bloody military crackdown.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June, a leading world press body warned that royal defamation laws were creating a “climate of fear” and being misused to wrongly imprison journalists.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


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