Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of the news and current affairs website Prachatai, was today convicted by the Bangkok Criminal court and sentenced to a fine and a suspended eight month prison term.
Her crime was to fail to act quickly enough to remove user comments that were defamatory of the monarchy. At the time that she was charged, Prachatai ran very active discussion boards and provided a unique platform for the kind of political debate that was impossible to have elsewhere. Thousands of users contributed to discussions every day on issues ranging from education to politics.
Chiranuch, Jiew to friends, had faced a sentence of 20 years in prison on 10 counts of “insult” to the monarchy, or lèse majesté and the court showed some leniency in convicting her on only one count and suspending the prison sentence. Judge Kampol Rungrat based his guilty verdict on one particular post that was left on the Prachatai site for 20 days, which he considered too long.
Chiranuch’s case brought together two sets of particularly restrictive laws: the Computer Crimes Act and the lèse majesté law. Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act and associated regulations have been relied upon to shut down or block tens of thousands of websites. In 2010 alone, the authorities themselves reported that 40,000 web pages had been blocked — while activists put the number at at least 110,000. Many of these include political sites.
Thailand’s lèse majesté law has been used to stifle political expression and dozens of people have been convicted to lengthy prison sentences. Only three weeks ago, a 62 year-old man convicted for sending insulting SMS messages to the personal secretary of the prime minister — which he strenuously denied — died in prison while serving a 20-year sentence.
The combination of the two sets of laws in this case was a highly toxic one and in a way, today’s verdict was perhaps the best possible outcome for Chiranuch. The court had very little leeway. She may still appeal and seek to clear her name but to do so would risk a more severe sentence being imposed.
But while today’s outcome was moderately good for Chiranuch (the suspended prison term does mean she will have to tightly control her website for fear of the sentence being activated) it is bad for freedom of expression. The discussion board on which the comments had been posted and which allowed space for political debate that was not permitted elsewhere has already been shut down because of the case. Others will no doubt follow.
The international free speech community had made Chiranuch a poster child for internet freedom. She shared a platform with Hillary Clinton at a Google-sponsored conference in the Hague in 2011 and spent the last two years traveling the world raising awareness of her case as well as the wider issue it stood for. Chiranuch’s lawyers conducted a solid defence and had pointed out that a strict interpretation of Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act would put the country out of step with international standards on freedom of expression – and that it would be bad for the development of online commerce in the country. Google and others had made it clear that a guilty verdict would impede the development of their business in Thailand.
The Thai courts convicted her nevertheless. This sent a clear signal: the authorities will not hesitate to press charges no matter how high the defendant’s profile. This can only lead to increased self-censorship and a further tightening of the space for free and open political debate in Thailand.
If the ignominy of coming last in the Eurovision Song Contest was not enough, Norway suffered a further humiliation when it was alleged that a journalist from their official delegation was threatened, stripped to his underwear and told to stamp on an Iranian flag by police at Baku airport. Norway’s Tooji received only seven points on Saturday’s final for his song “Stay”, ensuring that Englebert Humperdinck did not come last. However, this poor showing apparently did not quell the Azerbaijani authorities’ interest in the country.
On Friday, a crew from Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) arrived at Baku airport to catch a flight back to Oslo, among them was Iranian-Norwegian comedian Amir Asgharnejad. Asgharnejad apparently attracted the ire of figures in the Caspian state with his satirical videos around Baku during the week of the Eurovision. Playing a character called Bijan Samami, reminiscent of Sacha Baron Cohen’s creation “Borat”, he jokingly extolled the virtues of Iran and maligned neighbouring Azerbaijan. In a clip of him performing a dance routine, his foot appears to touch a nearby Azerbaijani flag. At passport control, Asgharnejad was taken to a room for questioning while his three colleagues were taken to the plane.
Director of Communications at NRK, Tommy Hansen said: “Between six and seven uniformed police questioned Amir for ninety minutes. They first accused him of possessing narcotics, before ordering him to strip down to his underwear. They then forced him to stamp and spit on the Iranian flag.” Mr Asgharnejad also claims that the officers filmed this event and just before he left the interrogation, he was informed: “If you tell anybody in Norway about this, we will hunt you down and kill you.” A spokesman for the Azerbaijan government, Elman Abdullayev, called the allegations “lies” and “fabrications”.
“This was a routine security procedure because Mr Asgharnejad’s passport photo was taken fifteen years ago and he looked different. This journalist made a video where he kicked the Azerbaijan flag and for this reason, he should not be taken seriously. If someone kicked the British flag, what would you do?”
Tommy Hansen added: “We are curious as to whether this is official policy of Azerbaijani authorities or just a group of police officers behaving badly. We consider this inappropriate to the working conditions of journalists and against human rights.” If true, the incident will no doubt sour relations between Norway and the oil-rich post-Soviet nation, to say nothing of the frosty situation with Iran. Recently the two neighbouring countries have traded insults after Ayatollah Sobhani, a senior cleric, accused Azerbaijan of organising a “gay parade” alongside the song contest. Ali Hasanov, an Azerbaijani government official, retorted: “Azerbaijan does not even have a word for ‘gay parade’. Unlike Iran.” Subsequent demonstrations outside the Iranian embassy in Baku, where protesters allegedly held placards insulting supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, caused Tehran to withdraw its ambassador on Tuesday. Norwegian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hanne Melfald referred to the alleged treatment of Mr Asgharnejad as a “serious incident”.
Andrew Connelly is a freelance journalist based in London and currently in Baku. You can follow him at @connellyandrew.
A Thai webmaster has been found guilty of not removing posts deemed insulting to the country’s monarchy quickly enough. The court showed leniency to Chiranuch Premchaiporn, who faced up to 20 years in prison under the country’s computer crime laws. She was fined 20,000 baht ($625), and given an eight month suspended sentence. Chiranuch was prosecuted after comments posted on her website Prachatai news breached Thailand’s lèse majesté laws. The judge said the verdict followed one particular post that was left on Parachatai for 20 days. Judge Kampol Rungrat said Chiranuch “did not perform her duty in a timely manner”.
The whereabouts of two Azerbaijani writers remains unknown, after they were allegedly kidnapped in Iran. Farid Huseyn and Shahriyar Hajizade were reportedly set upon by eight men in civilian dress as their bus arrived from Tehran into Tabriz, in northwestern Iran on 2 May. Huseyn, from news website 525 and daily newspaper Kaspiy, and Hajizade, who writes about youth issues on social networks, visited Tehran for the presentation of an Iranian edition of Huseyn’s writings. It is believed the pair are being held by Iranian security forces, though no information has been provided by the authorities.
Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of the news and current affairs website Prachatai, was today convicted by the Bangkok Criminal court and sentenced to a fine and a suspended eight month prison term.