Agence France-Presse, 30 May 201
The Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted an
online editor for hosting posts critical of the revered monarchy on her
website, but suspended her jail sentence.
But Judge Kampol Rungrat, while sentencing Chiranuch to eight months in jail, suspended the sentence for a year, saying that she had cooperated with the court and had "never violated the law herself''.
"The defendant cannot deny responsibility for taking care of content on her website," he said, adding she was initially given a one-year jail term but that this was cut to eight months for her "useful" testimony to the court.
According to the verdict, there were nine comments critical of the monarchy on Chiranuch's website.
Eight of the comments were deleted promptly, inside 20 days, but one of them remained on the website for 20 days. The law requires slurs on the monarchy to be removed within 20 days.
She still faces further charges - at a date to be set - of breaching Article 112 of the Criminal Code which outlaws insults to the royal family and allows for a maximum 15-year sentence for every conviction.
Hers is one of several high-profile cases that have stirred fierce debate in Thailand, where authorities are accused of trampling on free speech by exploiting the strict "lese majeste" law against defaming the royal family.
On Tuesday, a petition signed by almost 27,000 people urging reform was submitted to parliament in the first mass action of its kind.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment