zwiebel
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48-year-old Pongsak Sriboonpeng has been jailed for 30 years under Thailand's harsh lese majeste laws for making Facebook posts that were critical of Thailand's monarchy. It's one of the severest sentences ever passed under the law and he was actually sentenced to 60 years but received a 50 per cent reduction for pleading guilty. He has no right of appeal.
It breaks the record set in April when a businessman was jailed for 25 years for Facebook posts deemed 'defamatory' to the monarchy.
Human rights groups say the law is being used as a political weapon to silence critics of the royalist elite and the military junta supporting them, since a military coup in Thailand in 2014. It seems worrying to me that the thousands of young, Facebooking tourists visiting Thailand each year are probably totally unaware these laws exist and could easily fall foul of them if they post something critical while in the country.
I haven't posted this in Crimes as it just doesn't fit any US/Australian/European criteria for a criminal act and it doesn't seem right to put it there, in my opinion.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crime/648284/facebook-poster-jailed-record-30-years-for-lese-majeste
It breaks the record set in April when a businessman was jailed for 25 years for Facebook posts deemed 'defamatory' to the monarchy.
Human rights groups say the law is being used as a political weapon to silence critics of the royalist elite and the military junta supporting them, since a military coup in Thailand in 2014. It seems worrying to me that the thousands of young, Facebooking tourists visiting Thailand each year are probably totally unaware these laws exist and could easily fall foul of them if they post something critical while in the country.
I haven't posted this in Crimes as it just doesn't fit any US/Australian/European criteria for a criminal act and it doesn't seem right to put it there, in my opinion.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crime/648284/facebook-poster-jailed-record-30-years-for-lese-majeste