Thais march against lese majeste law
Fifty people marched from Victory Monument to the Ratchaprasong intersection yesterday afternoon to oppose the lese-majeste law amid an increasing number of arrests and trials under the law.
The march was led by octogenarian social critic Sulak Sivaraksa in a wheelchair. The move came just one day after the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a statement calling on Thailand to amend the law.
The UN body stated on Friday evening that the law is "neither necessary nor proportionate, and violates Thai human rights obligations".
"We are concerned about the ongoing trials and harsh sentencing of people convicted of lese majeste and the chilling effect this has on freedom of expression," said the UN body's acting spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani.
Sulak told The Nation that he wished the lese-majeste law would be abolished but admitted that it might not be possible at the moment. "Ideally, it should be abolished. But Thai society is stubborn and so it might not be scrapped," said Sulak, who has been tried under the lese-majeste law three times and acquitted.
Sulak proposed that the minimum penalty of three years' imprisonment should be scrapped while the maximum penalty should be reduced from 15 years to three years or no more than five years. He also added that a reliable agency needed to be set up to decide whether a case should be accepted and forwarded to the court, instead of the current situation wherein anyone can file a case.
"Many people are not alert that the law has become more draconian. The monarchy in Germany collapsed due to the lese-majeste law," said Sulak, who blamed ousted and convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra of "wanting to undermine the monarchy".
Suraphot Thaweesak, a lecturer at Suan Dusit Rajabhat Institute's Hua Hin campus, one of the latest victims, was among the protesters. A police complaint was lodged against him earlier this week after he posted a comment suggesting how the monarchy should reform itself.
"It [lese-majeste law] is a violation of citizens' status as human beings. It's a law which creates prisoners of conscience as victims of the autocratic system."
Wanrug Suwanwattana, a lecturer in French at Thammasat University, is another who joined the march. She said she wants to let society know that "we are very angry and sad at the same time".
Some of the recent cases include the sentencing of dual Thai-US citizen Joe Gordon to two and a half years in prison on Thursday for translating parts of the banned book "The King Never Smiles" while in the United States.
Last month, 61-year-old Amphon Tangnoppakul, aka Akong, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sending four defamatory SMS messages from his mobile phone to a personal secretary of then PM Abhisit Vejjajiva.
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