(New York) – The Bangkok Criminal Court has denied bail requests and ordered four prominent democracy activists into pre-trial detention on lese majeste charges.
January 29, 2021
Two of three suspects wanted for allegedly throwing a ping pong bomb that injured four people on Jan 17 have been arrested.
The Nation/Asia News Network
Two of three suspects wanted for allegedly throwing a ping pong bomb that injured four people on Jan 17 have been arrested.
The Metropolitan Police on Thursday announced the arrest of Pornchai Prakaphuang (23) and Natthasut Siri-ut (19) for allegedly throwing the small low-pressure explosive the size of a table tennis ball at police who were monitoring a rally of pro-democracy protesters in front of Chamchuri Square building in Bangkok’s Pathumwan district. Two police officers, a member of the press and one citizen were injured in the resulting explosion.
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A Thai court has issued a rare acquittal in a royal defamation case against an 80-year-old writer, a week after judges handed down the most severe prison term ever imposed for the crime of lese-majeste.
The Bangkok Criminal Court ruled that Bundit Aneeya had not violated the country’s strict lese-majeste law because the allegedly defamatory comments he made in 2015 had not specifically referred to royalty and had not used rude language.
The unexpected acquittal comes amid a rash of lese-majeste cases aimed at tamping down a youthful protest movement that has been accompanied by rare open criticism of the Thai monarchy and King Vajiralongkorn. In the past two months, the authorities have imposed royal defamation charges against at least 54 people, according to the legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
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On Wednesday,the news broke that Thai authorities were lodging a lese-majeste complaint against the prominent opposition politician Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit.
The charge comes amid an alarming uptick in cases of royal defamation in Thailand, as the government of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha seeks to quash a youthful protest campaign that has broken a longstanding taboo by criticizing the Thai monarchy.
Just this week, the Bangkok Criminal Court sentenced Anchan Preelert, a 64-year-old former civil servant, to 43-and-a-half years in prison for posting audio clips on social media in 2014 and 2015 that were deemed critical of the royal family.
The lese-majeste complaint against Thanathorn relates to criticisms that he made recently about the Thai government’s COVID-19 vaccine procurement program. In addition to criticizing it on substantive grounds, he alleged that there had been favoritism in the awarding of a vaccine production contract to Siam Bioscience,