Activists met at Thammasat and Mahidol universities last week to discuss their increasing fears about the abuse of the lèse majesté laws. Several activists spoke at the seminars, explaining how the abuse of the laws led to them to be unfairly ostracized or imprisoned.
Labor activist Chitra Kochadet was accused by her employer of being a disloyal citizen and was thus fired from her job. Kochadet had recently begun protesting unfair layoffs at her company and says that her dismissal was a result of her protests, not because of anti-Thai behavior. She argues that her employer unfairly used lèse majesté laws as a way to stop her protests.
Suthachai Yimprasert spoke about how the laws were being used as a way to unfairly detain certain people. He witnessed firsthand the imprisonment of an aquaintence named Da Torpido. Torpido was repeatedly denied bail and remained in prison while others accused of the same crimes were set free.
Prachatai webmaster Chiranut Premchaiyaporn spoke about the lack of legally stated guidelines on what are considered anti-Thai remarks. She believes that the absence of these guidelines led to the unjustified shutdown of her website. The fact there are no guidelines allows the lèse majesté laws to be broadly interpreted, and Thai citizens are being punished for it.
The seminars also pushed for the maximum prison sentence for those accused of breaking lèse majesté laws be decreased from fifteen years to seven years.
-Jillian Knowles (Thailand)
Monday, March 30, 2009
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