Lèse-majesté in Thailand
The 2014 military junta government granted authority to army courts to prosecute lèse-majesté, which has usually resulted in secret trials and harsh sentences.
[8][9] In 2023, the Supreme Court ordered a female politician from the Move Forward Party to be banned from politics for life due to her alleged lèse-majesté posts on social media.
[15]: 3 Other sections provided protection from displays of malice or defamation of "the princes or princesses from whichever reign"[15]: 3 or from those who "create disloyalty" or "insult the king", and "cause the people to transgress the royal laws".
[15]: 3–4 As the print media was becoming widespread, the criminal code was strengthened in 1928 to penalise crimes of "advocates or teachers of any political or economic doctrine or system, intended or calculated to bring into hatred or contempt the Sovereign".
[15]: 4 Lèse-majesté law did not change significantly after the 1932 Siamese Revolution, because the Khana Ratsadon compromised and added the inviolable status of the king in the Constitution, which continues to the present day.
This allowed discussion over whether Thailand be a constitutional monarchy in 1949, and a 1956 lecture by a legal scholar which said the king should not express an opinion on economic, political and social problems with no countersign.
[15]: 6 Claiming national security, Thai Cold War dictator Sarit Thanarat used lèse-majesté charges to suppress political opponents, leading to some executions.
[14]: 32–3 On 21 October 1976, two weeks after the 6 October 1976 massacre and the same day coup by the National Administrative Reform Council (NARC), led by Admiral Sangad Chaloryu, NARC issued Order No.41 that including Article 112 revision to strengthen defamation laws as they explained in the order that current laws had been unsuitable for the unstable political situation at that time.
[18]: 115–6 Between 1977 and 1986 when the royal power base grew among the urban middle class, the "kinship" and "bond" relationship was created between the people and the king as well as its modern "inviolable" status.
[14]: 38–9 Examples of cases of insult include a politician, in 1988, who served four years in prison for suggesting that life would have been easier had he been born in the palace,[3]: 134 and a man in 1976 who was arrested on charges of lèse-majesté for using a royal village scout scarf to wipe a table.
[19] In March 2007, Oliver Jufer, a Swiss man, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for daubing black paint on portraits of King Bhumibol while drunk in Chiang Mai,[20][21] although he received a royal pardon the following month.
He proposed reducing the maximum jail term to three years, a circumstance for pardoning, and that only the Office of His Majesty's Principal Private Secretary could file a complaint.
[41] In 2015, Prachatai published an infographic showing that bathroom graffiti, a hand gesture, a hearsay report of a taxi conversation, and not standing during the playing of the royal anthem, among other things, could be punished as acts of lèse-majesté.
[44] In December 2016, Jatupat "Pai" Boonpattararaksa, a rights group member, was accused of lèse-majesté for sharing a BBC Thai biography of Thailand's new king, Vajiralongkorn.
[51] After the forced disappearance of Wanchalearm Satsaksit, an alleged lèse-majesté offender, in June 2020, #ยกเลิก112 (repeal 112) trended first on Twitter in Thailand with more than 500,000 retweets, as netizens believed his accusations motivated his abduction.
[53] Anchan P. was handed 87-year prison sentence for uploading and sharing videos on the internet of an online talk show after she had been detained in jail for nearly four years from 2015.
[60] On 14 May 2024, Netiporn Sanesangkhom, a Thai activist charged with lèse-majesté, died in detention after months-long hunger strike calling for reform of the justice system and protest against imprisonment of political dissenters.
[14]: 26–7 David Streckfuss, a scholar on Thai human rights and politics, commented that lèse-majesté is one factor defining neo-absolutism in Thailand.
The stage-managed role of the monarch, the compulsory respect shown to the institution, and the pressure of social conformity left many people with a taste of bitterness which few felt confident to express.
[3]: 134 Section 112 of Thai Criminal Code currently reads as follows: "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years.
[69] David Streckfuss opined that lèse majesté law is not necessarily controversial, even some Western democratic countries seem to have severe jail punishment, if rarely used.
[74] Comments on the sufficiency economy theory published by King Bhumibol Adulyadej can also lead to lèse-majesté prosecution, as in the case of Udom Taepanich in 2024.
There is no need for the prosecuting authorities to bring any evidence to bear relating to foresight on the part of the defendant with regard to the fact of the statement or conduct.
On 28 October 2008, The Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) announced plans to spend about 100–500 million baht to build a gateway to block websites with contents defaming the royal institution.
[95] In 2019, the Facebook page "Royalist Marketplace" was launched as a forum by academic Pavin Chachavalpongpun to discuss and criticise the Thai monarchy freely.
[98] On 9 July 2020, Tiwagorn Withiton, a Facebook user who went viral after posting a picture of himself wearing a t-shirt printed with the message, "I lost faith in the monarchy" was forcibly detained by police officers and admitted to Rajanagarindra Psychiatric Hospital in Khon Kaen.
"[110] The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye, commenting "Public figures, including those exercising the highest political authority, may be subject to criticism, and the fact that some forms of expression are considered to be insulting to a public figure is not sufficient to justify restrictions or penalties."
[111] In November 2015, Glyn T. Davies, the US ambassador to Thailand, gave a speech criticising the long prison sentences handed to those found guilty of lèse-majesté.
[112] Activists against the law or those who seek to reform it include: Mainueng Kor Kunatee (a poet who was assassinated in 2014);[113] Somsak Jeamteerasakul; Giles Ji Ungpakorn;[114] Pavin Chachavalpongpun,[115] a former diplomat, and an associate professor at the Kyoto University and a leader of a campaign to abolish Article 112 of the Thai criminal code; and The Nitirat group—an association of law lecturers who campaign for constitutional reform and a change of Thailand's lèse-majesté law–including Worachet Pakeerut, Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, and Sawatree Suksri.
[121] In July 2014, British comedian John Oliver described Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn as a "buffoon" and showed the leaked video of Vajiralongkorn and his topless wife celebrating the birthday of the prince's poodle, Air Chief Marshal Foo Foo, in a satirical piece about monarchy in general on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
