Lese majeste petition to Parliament

The Campaign Committee for Amendment of Article 112 held a rally at Thammasat University yesterday after it had gathered enough names to table a bill to amend Article 112 of the Criminal Code.
Since January 15, 38,281 people had signed the petition to support the amendment bill, but the committee verified the names and found 27,296 were eligible. The Constitution allows at least 15,000 eligible voters to propose any laws on basic rights and state policies to Parliament.
The committee would go to Parliament tomorrow to submit the petition and the proposed bill to the Parliament president.
The Thammasat auditorium was filled with red-shirt supporters who back the Article 112 amendment. The demonstrators said they would band together until Article 112 is either annulled or rewritten to stop it from being manipulated as a political tool.
The group said in a statement issued yesterday that the lese majeste law was widely applied by politicians and political activists to silence their opponents. Cases of lese majeste increased dramatically after the military coup in 2006 polarised politics in the country. Many pro-coup politicians and activists used the law to gag their critics.
Many academics, writers and journalists were accused of breaking the law for their literary attacks on the establishment.
The case of Amphon “Akong” Tangnoppakul, who died recently in prison during his trial on lese majeste charges, drew sympathy and questions from the public over heavy-handed imposition of the law. Amphon was charged with lese majeste for sending an SMS allegedly defaming the monarchy from his mobile phone.
The elderly man denied the allegation, saying he did not even know how to send a text from a cellphone. The prosecution failed to prove clearly it was him who sent the message. Amphon was sentenced to 20 years and was declined bail during the trial before he died of cancer in prison early this month.
The lecturers and the bill proponents called for a reduction in jail terms for violations of Article 112 and a limit to the authority to indict someone on lese majeste charges to the Office of His Majesty’s Principal Private Secretary. The current law allows anybody to sue anyone whom they believed insulted the royal institution.