The AP reports:
A prominent Thai activist and magazine editor was sentenced to a decade in prison Wednesday for defaming Thailand’s monarchy, a verdict rights groups condemned as the latest affront to freedom of expression in the Southeast Asian country.
Somyot Pruksakasemsuk was convicted of publishing two articles in an anti-establishment magazine that made negative references to the crown.
The New York Times says:
A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced a labor activist and former magazine editor to 10 years in prison for insulting Thailand’s king, the latest in a string of convictions under the country’s strict lese majeste law.
The case of Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, 51, was different from previous lese majeste cases because Mr. Somyot directly challenged the law itself, saying it violated the right to free expression.
The Wall Street Journal says:
A court in Thailand sentenced a magazine editor to 10 years in prison Wednesday for publishing two articles that prosecutors said defamed the country’s revered monarchy, focusing fresh international attention on both the way Thailand’s strict lese majeste laws are applied and the extent of the country’s gaping political divides.
And Reuters reports:
A former Thai magazine editor was jailed for 10 years on Wednesday for insulting the royal family under the country’s draconian lese-majeste law, a sentence that drew condemnation from international rights groups and the European Union.
Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was found guilty of publishing articles defaming King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2010 when he was editor of a magazine devoted to self-exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
One reply on “Thailand’s Somyot Sentenced to 10 Years for Royal Defamation”
Do you believe it was the free expression? Read those two articles first! They are full of acrimonious and malicious words. Do they have the right to insult and curse anybody in public? I am confident that Mr. Somyot wholly knew that it is against the Thailand law to publish those two articles. In other words, he intentionally challenged the law as he was rather sure that he would be back up by a clan of red shirt people and the law can do no harm to him. To this, will you still think that he candidly published those articles with unintention.