A Thai court he condemned a former civil servant at 43 years and 6 months in prison for violating the country’s strict law that prohibits criticizing or insulting the crown. Pawinee Chumsri, lawyer of the Lawyers for Human Rights association, which deals with civil rights and has assisted the woman, has explained which is the longest sentence imposed for the crime of treason, which in Thailand falls under the penal code, and for which in 2017 a trader was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
The woman is called Anchan Preelert, she is 65 years old and has been found guilty of spreading critical comments 29 times against the king, Maha Vajiralongkorn, through Facebook and YouTube. His case dates back to 2014, when in Thailand there was a coup of the army led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha against a legitimately elected government: due to unwelcome comments, the woman had already been jailed from 2015 to 2018. Initially the court had imposed a sentence of 87 years but today it has halved the sentence to 43 years and 6 months because Preelert pleaded guilty.
L’article 112 Thai law provides that one can be punished with a prison term of up to 15 years for each criticism or defamation of the crown. In recent years this law has been used frequently both to suppress dissent and to restrict freedom of expression, but until recently in Thailand it was very rare that there was such open criticism of the king. However, the situation changed after major protests against the government and the monarchy last year and recently the law was used to arrest and put at least 50 people on trial for the crime of treason.
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