The crackdown on lèse majesté is intensifying as politics becomes polarised around the monarchy, says Sinfah Tunsarawuth
Action: sign the petition against Thailand’s lèse majesté prosecutions here
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Our friend Roby Alampay of the South East Asian Press Alliance has an interesting post on Comment is Free on the iniquities of Thailand’s lèse majesté laws:
‘The charge of lese-majesty [sic] can be brought against anyone by anybody else. In the past year, police summoned an academic who questioned the royal family’s involvement in Thailand’s recent coups, and a former government official who took part in a media forum with some perspectives on republicanism. But charges have also been brought by fellow citizens against a man who, critical of recent coups, refused to stand in a cinema during the customary playing of the king’s anthem, and then against a labour leader who appeared on a TV news programme to talk about an ongoing strike in a clothing factory. The labour dispute had nothing to do with the man who refused to stand in the theatre. But on TV the union leader happened to wear a shirt that read, “Not standing up is not a crime”, and that was all it took for her union-busting employers to bring Thailand’s most notorious anti-insult law to bear down on the worker. Practically every Thai political camp routinely taunts the others with the charge.’
Read the rest here
Australian writer Harry Nicolaides has been sentenced to three years in prison in Thailand for insulting the king in his book Verisimilitude.
Read more here
Political scientist Ji Ungpakorn, a professor at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University and a prominent activist, has called for a campaign to abolish the country’s lèse majesté law.
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