A Thai man faces 50 years in prison for insulting the monarchy

BANGKOK — A 30-year-old Thai man faces 50 years in prison for insulting the royal family based on dozens of social media posts seen as critical of the monarchy, his lawyer said, after an appeals court on Thursday added an additional prison term. . To his initial conviction.

Mongkul “Puspas” Therakot, an online clothing seller from the northern province of Chiang Rai, was sentenced to 22 years in prison after an appeals court found more royal insult violations, on top of a 28-year prison sentence handed down by a criminal court last year.

Thailand's lese majeste law, one of the strictest in the world, protects minors from criticism and carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for each violation, a punishment that international human rights groups have condemned as extreme.

Mongkol was arrested in April 2021 and sentenced to 28 years in prison last January for 14 lese majeste violations. The Court of Appeal confirmed his previous conviction and found him guilty of 11 further violations.

Thailand's lese majeste law, which protects King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his close family from criticism, is referred to as No. 112 after the relevant section of the Criminal Code.

“He faces 50 years in prison, which is the longest in the history of Article 112 cases,” Mongkol's lawyer, Theravon Komsap, told Reuters.

Theravon said Mongkol denies any wrongdoing and will appeal his sentence to the Supreme Court.

The previous record conviction for lese majeste was in 2021 when Anchan Prielert, a retired civil servant, was sentenced to 87 years in prison on 29 counts of lese majeste. Her sentence was reduced to 43 years because she admitted to her violations.

According to the legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, at least 262 people have been charged with lese majeste crimes since 2020, when unprecedented youth-led street demonstrations broke out in which protest leaders publicly criticized the monarchy.