The increasing use of lèse-majesté laws serves no one
ON FEBRUARY 4th the latest trial for insulting the monarchy was to begin in a Bangkok courtroom. The accused is Chiranuch Premchaiporn, arrested in 2009 for violating the Computer Crime Act. As director of Prachatai.com, she faces ten charges for not preventing comments on bulletin boards that might have offended the royal family. If found guilty she faces up to 50 years in jail.
The 2007 act was originally intended to prevent cybercrimes such as hacking. But most prosecutions are for online content which supposedly endangers national security. Prosecutions for insulting the monarchy come under this rubric. The trial of Ms Chiranuch is an unwelcome reminder that laws on lèse-majesté, once used only sparingly, are now deployed with ferocious frequency—more for political gain than to protect the monarchy.
With government statistics, David Streckfuss, an academic, says the number of lèse-majesté charges each year has leapt, from just 2.5 on average in the 1980s to 164 in 2009. Many of the accused are jailed. The Computer Crime Act has also had a powerful effect. Work by Thammasat University says the courts have used it to block nearly 75,000 web pages, 57,330 for anti-monarchy content. Some 44,000 of those pages were blocked in 2010.
The increase in repression dates from the coup against the populist prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006. He was widely seen by those around the king to be too powerful, even usurping the prerogatives of the monarch. Today the conservative government of Abhisit Vejjajiva says lèse-majesté laws should be used vigorously to protect the king from criticism and prevent him from being dragged into party politics. But it acknowledges over-enthusiastic appplication and has set up a committee to review this.
Yet Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a diplomat-turned-academic, argues that the opposite is happening. The almost arbitrary use of lèse-majesté, he writes, has “served to damage, not safeguard, the institution.” Meanwhile, he argues, using laws to suppress the opposition and media obstructs Thailand’s democratisation. Official veneration of the monarchy has sometimes reached ridiculous proportions. For critics like Mr Pavin, the rush to prosecute is not really about protecting the monarchy but about exploiting its prestige to legitimise the royalist establishment.
How far the ailing King Bhumibol supports the use of the law to protect his name, no one is sure. But Sulak Sivarkasa, a lawyer who has twice been prosecuted for lèse-majesté, has an illuminating story. His most recent case, in 2009, involved a critical essay on the monarchy in an obscure journal. He was arrested, but found out while dining with a public prosecutor that his case had been dropped. Mr Sulak asked why. “He told me frankly that the king wanted it to be done, to stop.”
Via: http://www.economist.com/node/18073343?story_id=18073343&fsrc=rss
The 2007 act was originally intended to prevent cybercrimes such as hacking. But most prosecutions are for online content which supposedly endangers national security. Prosecutions for insulting the monarchy come under this rubric. The trial of Ms Chiranuch is an unwelcome reminder that laws on lèse-majesté, once used only sparingly, are now deployed with ferocious frequency—more for political gain than to protect the monarchy.
With government statistics, David Streckfuss, an academic, says the number of lèse-majesté charges each year has leapt, from just 2.5 on average in the 1980s to 164 in 2009. Many of the accused are jailed. The Computer Crime Act has also had a powerful effect. Work by Thammasat University says the courts have used it to block nearly 75,000 web pages, 57,330 for anti-monarchy content. Some 44,000 of those pages were blocked in 2010.
The increase in repression dates from the coup against the populist prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, in 2006. He was widely seen by those around the king to be too powerful, even usurping the prerogatives of the monarch. Today the conservative government of Abhisit Vejjajiva says lèse-majesté laws should be used vigorously to protect the king from criticism and prevent him from being dragged into party politics. But it acknowledges over-enthusiastic appplication and has set up a committee to review this.
Yet Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a diplomat-turned-academic, argues that the opposite is happening. The almost arbitrary use of lèse-majesté, he writes, has “served to damage, not safeguard, the institution.” Meanwhile, he argues, using laws to suppress the opposition and media obstructs Thailand’s democratisation. Official veneration of the monarchy has sometimes reached ridiculous proportions. For critics like Mr Pavin, the rush to prosecute is not really about protecting the monarchy but about exploiting its prestige to legitimise the royalist establishment.
How far the ailing King Bhumibol supports the use of the law to protect his name, no one is sure. But Sulak Sivarkasa, a lawyer who has twice been prosecuted for lèse-majesté, has an illuminating story. His most recent case, in 2009, involved a critical essay on the monarchy in an obscure journal. He was arrested, but found out while dining with a public prosecutor that his case had been dropped. Mr Sulak asked why. “He told me frankly that the king wanted it to be done, to stop.”
Via: http://www.economist.com/node/18073343?story_id=18073343&fsrc=rss
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