UN human rights experts speak out against rise of lese majeste cases in Thailand

Bangkok

UNITED Nations human rights experts on Monday spoke out against Thailand's increasing use of a law forbidding criticism of its royal family, singling out a 43-year sentence for an elderly woman convicted under the law.

The condemnation comes after dozens of police cases have been filed against leaders of youth-led demonstrations that have broken taboos by openly criticising the Thai king, risking prosecution under a strict law known as lese majeste that is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Since November, at least 40 youth activists have been charged under the law, according to records compiled by Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. All of the legal cases are pending.

"We are profoundly disturbed by the reported rise in the number of lese majeste prosecutions since late 2020 and the harsher prison sentences," a group of seven UN special rapporteurs and members of a working committee on arbitrary detention said in a statement on Monday.

The UN human rights office in December called on Thailand to amend the law.

Monday's statement singled out the case of Anchan Preelert, a 65-year-old woman sentenced to 43 years in prison in January in what lawyers said was the harshest punishment yet for royal insult.

The military-backed government briefly stopped using the lese majeste law in 2018, but police started to invoke it again late last year after young protesters began openly criticising the monarchy.

Thailand is officially a constitutional monarchy, but the king is revered by the predominantly Buddhist country's conservative establishment. Until recently, open criticism was extremely rare.

Meanwhile, a Thai court on Monday overturned its order for an opposition figure to remove social media videos in which he criticised the government's coronavirus vaccine strategy, which he had called opaque, slow and unfairly favourable to a royal-owned company.

The government has also lodged a complaint separately over the same remarks by banned politician Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, accusing him of insulting the king, an offence punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

"The court saw that Thanathorn's comments were honest opinions which didn't affect national security," Kritsadang Nutcharat, Mr Thanathorn's lawyer, told Reuters.

A court official confirmed the decision to reverse the order but did not elaborate.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Sunday rejected Mr Thanathorn's accusation that the government was slow to procure vaccines and too re-liant on the AstraZeneca vaccine, which Siam Bioscience, a firm owned by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, will manufacture locally.

He said Thailand was offered higher prices from the international vaccine sharing scheme Covax, and due to local laws, the government could not commit to downpayments for vaccines when effectiveness or delivery could not be guaranteed.

"We saw the conditions from vaccine producers and Covax, which requires advance reservation without knowing the phase 3 test results," Mr Prayuth said in a podcast.

Thailand has ordered at least 26 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines to be produced by Siam Bio-science and two million from Sinovac Biotech, before mass vaccinations are set to start in June. It will import the first 50,000 of 150,000 "early doses" of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the first 200,000 doses from Sinovac this month.

Thailand reported 186 new corona-virus cases on Monday, taking its total to 23,557, with 79 deaths. REUTERS