Pongsak Sriboonpeng, 48, receives one of the toughest known sentences passed under the junta-ruled kingdom’s draconian royal defamation law

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A Thai man has been jailed for 30 years for insulting the monarchy on Facebook, in one of the toughest known sentences passed under the junta-ruled kingdom’s draconian royal defamation law.

Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 87, is protected by rules known as lèse-majesté (injured majesty), under which anyone convicted of insulting the king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.

On Friday Bangkok’s military court found Pongsak Sriboonpeng, 48, guilty of posting messages and pictures defaming the monarchy in six posts on the social media site.

He was sentenced to 10 years on each count with the 60-year jail term halved after he pleaded guilty, his lawyer, Sasinan Thamnithinan, said.

“It’s broken the record,” she said about the severe jail term, adding that because Pongsak was arrested while Thailand was still under martial law there was no right to appeal against the sentence the military court passed.

Lèse-majesté convictions have surged since Thailand’s generals seized power from the elected government in May 2014.

According to iLaw, a local rights group that monitors such cases, there were just two ongoing prosecutions for royal defamation before the coup. Now that number is at least 56.

Critics of the law say it has been used as a weapon against political enemies of the royalist elite and their military allies and now targets those opposed to the coup.

In another conviction this week, a military court in the northern province of Chiang Rai sentenced a man with a history of mental illness to five years in jail for lèse-majesté.

Samak Pantay, 48, was found guilty of slashing a portrait of the king and queen in July last year, lawyer Anon Numpa said.

“He confessed to the charge so the judge commuted the sentence to five years,” he said, adding that Samak had been medically certified as mentally ill for “more than 10 years”.

Thailand’s ultra-royalist generals have long used their self-appointed position as defenders of the monarchy to justify coups and political interventions in the country’s often turbulent politics.

But both Thai and international media must heavily self-censor when covering lèse-majesté and the monarchy – even repeating the details of charges of perceived defamation offences could mean breaking the law.

Thai authorities rarely provide details of cases, leaving rights groups to follow prosecutions across the country.

In April a businessman was jailed for 25 years for posting Facebook messages deemed to be defamatory to the monarchy, in a ruling that rights groups described as one of the harshest known.

In the same month, Thailand’s ruling military replaced martial law with new powers that retain much of the same authority but allow civilians to appeal to a higher tribunal for lèse-majesté crimes, which are still, however, tried at a military court.