Thai student leader jailed for lese majeste

BANGKOK, Thailand –  A prominent student leader was jailed on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to defaming Thailand’s royal family by sharing a news story about the kingdom’s new monarch on Facebook.

Jatupat “Pai Dao Din” Boonpatararaksa, 25, is the latest anti-junta activist to be hit by the country’s draconian lese majeste law which bans any criticism of the monarchy.

The law has been wielded with increased ferocity under Thailand’s military rulers. 

He had been held in custody since his arrest in December for sharing a profile of King Maha Vajiralongkorn written by the BBC’s Thai-language service in London.

On Tuesday a court in northeastern Khon Kaen province jailed him for two and a half years after he abruptly changed his plea to guilty.

“He was sentenced to five years, and the court reduced it to two years, six months after the guilty plea,” Jatupat’s father Viboon told the Agence France-Presse, adding he been left “disappointed” by his son’s legal woes.

Those charged with lese majeste in Thailand are almost always convicted, often behind closed doors.

Each charge carries up to 15 years in jail and many plead guilty hoping for a reduced sentence. 

The severity of the law makes real scrutiny of the wealthy and powerful royal family all but impossible inside the kingdom – including by the media who have to heavily self-censor. 

Use of the lese majeste law has generated widespread international criticism.

“The treatment of Pai Daodin has been alarming on several levels, from his prosecution for exercising his right to free expression in the first place to his prolonged pre-trial detention and the fact some of the hearings were not held in public,” said Kingsley Abbott, from the the International Commission of Jurists, which often monitors lese majeste trials. 

Some 120 people have fallen foul of the law since an ultra-royalist junta seized power in 2014.

Jatupat was the first to be detained under Vajiralongkorn’s reign. 

A UN report earlier this year noted that the lese majeste conviction rate had gone from 75 percent before the coup to 96 percent last year.

Some of those jailed have been handed record-breaking sentences as long as 30 years, often for comments made on social media.

Many activists have compared such lengthy sentences with a string of recent cases in which well-connected people have received light punishments or avoided prosecution. 

The most notorious case is that of Worayuth Yoovidhya, the scion of the billionaire family behind the energy drinks giant Red Bull, who has for years dodged prosecution for killing a police officer in a drunken hit-and-run driving incident.

Vajiralongkorn ascended the throne after the death in October of his father, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who reigned for seven decades.

He has yet to attain his father’s widespread popularity. There has been no let up in lese majeste prosecutions since his accession, with more than a dozen people charged since he assumed the throne.

Jatupat faces a slew of further prosecutions over his anti-military protests which could see his jail time extended. – Rappler.com