Lese majeste activist’s jail term reduced

The 56-year-old activist is expected to be freed next year as he has already been in prison for nearly six years of his original 11-year sentence.
Charged for violating the lese-majeste law, Article 112 of the Criminal Code, Somyot had been found guilty by both criminal and appeal courts. The courts sentenced him to 10 years in prison for allegedly publishing two articles deemed insulting to the monarchy while editor of the political magazine Voice of Tahksin. Each offence carried a punishment of five years in jail.
The court yesterday heard Somyot’s argument that he was only the editor, not the author, of the two articles and he was loyal to the monarchy, then reduced his sentence to six years given his actions, age and education.
Somyot was also sentenced to one year in jail for defaming General Saprang Kalayanamitr, so he has to serve a seven-year jail term before being released, according to the Supreme Court’s verdict. The reading of the verdict yesterday was observed by officials from the embassies of United States, Sweden and France, and representatives from international organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union, as well as the activist’s supporters.
Somyot, a long-time labour activist, was the editor in 2013 when the magazine allegedly published two lese-majeste articles by “Chit Ponlachan”, the pen name of fugitive former minister Jakrapob Penkair, involving controversial historical events in the Kingdom.
Somyot denied the allegations, arguing that the “aristocrat” cited in the articles did not refer to the monarch and that he was only an employee who was paid Bt25,000 a month for working to publish the contentious magazine. However, the criminal and the appeal courts ruled that although neither article specified the name of the “aristocrat”, the author had the intention to connect historical events to the contemporary situation and related those events to the monarchy.
Given his education and working background in politics, the courts previously had ruled Somyot should have analysed the articles before publishing them, demonstrating that he had the intention to defame the monarchy and should serve 10 years in jail.