Recently a student was arrested by the Thailand police after sharing a profile of newly introduced King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Facebook by the Thai-language service of the BBC.
Student Gets Arrested For Sharing King’s Profile On Facebook
On Saturday a student was arrested by the Thailand police after sharing a profile of newly introduced King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Facebook by the Thai-language service of the BBC.
The student, whose names is Jatupat Boonpattararaksa was arrested by the Thailand police in north-eastern Thailand for violating the lese majeste law with royal insult under Article 112 of Thailand’s criminal code in the city of Khon Kaen.
Lese-majeste law is actually a tough law and Jatupat Boonpattararaksa’s arrest is the first arrest under the country’s tough Lese-majeste law. A superintendent of north-eastern Chaiyaphum province, Colonel Jaturon Trakulpan stated that “We caught him at a temple”.
Not only that, the ‘Article 112’ itself states that anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir-apparent or the regent” will be punished with up to 15 years in prison. Now this is really tough punishment.
The story which was posted by the activist actually contained mentions of the personal life of the king when that he was still crown prince, including details about his three divorces and other materials that can not be published in the Thai press.
Apparently, this is the first arrest for the reason of insult to the monarchy since the new king, Vajiralongkorn, assumed the throne on December 1. The lese majeste offenses involve penalties ranging from 3 to 15 years in prison, he stands in the middle as we mentioned earlier that how tough this rule is actually.
Jatupat Boonpattararaksa belongs to Din, a student organization that protests against the military government of Thailand, established after the coup of 2014. “It is one of the thousands of people who shared the material published by BBC Thai, but in his case was issued a warrant under section 112 for sharing this information, “notes the organization, which demands their immediate release and alleged that the arrest is a violation of human rights”.
Even, last year, two people suffered record jail sentences of 25 years and 30 years respectively for the Facebook posts that were actually considered insulting to the autocracy.