IPS News reports that Suwicha Thakhor, who was arrested on January 14, was sentenced on April 3 to ten years in prison.

On Apr. 3, the criminal court sentenced the 34-year-old father of three children to 10 years in jail for posting an image on the Internet that was deemed to have insulted the Thai royal family. Suwicha’s sentence – initially for the maximum of 20 years but reduced to half – has pushed this South-east Asian nation to join the ranks of countries where bloggers can be imprisoned for expressing their views, such as Thailand’s western neighbour, military-ruled Burma.

The verdict also saw the three judges who presided over this groundbreaking case take measures that went against the grain of an open trial, which is often the case in other criminal cases. Reporters present in the wooden panelled chamber were ordered not to take notes of the proceedings. The court also did not say how the defamatory photos were doctored. 

Read the rest of this entry…

Nicolaides, the Australian author resident in Thailand, had been arrested and sentenced to three years in prison under the “lese majeste” law. Thailand’s law prohibits any criticism of the royal family. The King himself warned against abuse of the law, which has not kept politicians and bureaucrats in the kingdom for doing just that.

Nicolaides had self-published a book in which one paragraph contained a rumor about a member of the royal family that had been making the rounds.

RSF reported that the writer was freed after having been given a royal pardon on February 19, a month after being sentenced.

Previously the lese majeste law had provided grounds for blocking YouTube and other social media sites.

A quick update to the item we had posted earlier,

Harry Nicolaides has apologized to the Thai king saying it was not his intention to insult the royal family and that he was only reporting what other Thais were saying.

His arrest was due to a book about the Royal Family, he says only 50 copies were printed of which 2 were sold.  And that in the 300 page book only 3 line were offending to the King and has led to his arrest.

His passport is being held for fear that he might skip the country we hope the situation ends amicable for Nicolaides.

Australian blogger and writer Harry Nicolaides was arrested for insulting the king on Sunday in Bankok, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company (via Bankok Pundit).

He has been visiting Thailand since 2003 and has written a book which mentions members of the royal family.

It is uncertain whether Nicolaides’s blog had anything to do with his arrest.

Update: A Thai member wrote to say Blogger.com (blogspot) has been blocked also. But Bankokbuddy wrote that it had been unblocked. Can anyone tell us what the situation is currently?

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The Thai Ministry for Information, Communication and Technology has ordered more than 1200 sites shut down due to “violation of the computer crime act and specifically 344 of them for insulting the monarchy.”

The minister, Mun Patanotai, said that the ministry detected the sites between¬†March and August this year and that the sites were disturbing the peaceful social order and morality of the people and others which were detrimental to the country’s national security.

He says that ISPs have been instructed to block the sites and he has sought court action against them under article 20 of the country’s laws.¬† Obtaining court orders against 400 of them.

Disturbing how free speech and online freedom don’t seem to exist for these blunderers.

Thanks to Bangkok Post

One for the win column. According to RSF, the charges against the pseudonymous Thai blogger Praya Pichai have been dropped.

There is no news about the anonymous woman arrested on the same day as Praya, August 24. Praya was able to afford bail. The woman in question was not.

Thailand’s threatening Computer Crime Act remains intact.

Former Thai Senator Jon Ungphakorn published an op-ed today in AsiaMedia on the measures that Thailand has taken against free speech.

Since the military coup of Sept 19, 2006, Thailand has almost caught up with China as a world leader in the field of internet censorship and control, particularly with regard to freedom of political expression. This is a completely unacceptable environment for the promised return to democracy at the end of this year.

On the day after the coup, the Council for Democratic Reform that took over the country ordered the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) to “control, intercept, suppress and eliminate the distribution over all information networks of articles, text, speech and other forms of communication that might adversely affect administrative reform of the democratic system under the constitutional monarchy”.

This order has never been rescinded.

According to Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (FACT), by May 28 of this year, the MICT was blocking access by the Thai public to a total of 11,329 websites.

He goes on to talk about the implications of the Computer Crime Act, passed in July, under which Thai blogger Phraya Pichai was arrested in August.

Article 14 of this act makes it a crime punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of 100,000 baht for anyone to import into a computer system, or to forward or propagate:

1) False information or forged data likely to cause damage to others, or to the general public;

2) False information likely to damage national security or cause undue public alarm;

3) Any information contravening national security or anti-terrorism laws;

4) Obscene materials which are publicly accessible.

Internet service operators who knowingly allow such crimes to take place on computer systems under their control are also liable to the same punishment.

Such vaguely defined and all-encompassing grounds for criminal charges will surely encourage discriminatory use of the law by those in power to punish political opponents and dissidents.

Website hosts will obviously be reluctant to allow controversial political views on any websites connected to them.

He mentions two arrests, though he does not indicate who the second arrestee was.

Shockingly, neither case attracted the attention of the mainstream media. It was mainly on internet sites and in email circles that the news of their arrests became known.

The fact is that in Thailand today, political expression on the internet is more subject to censorship and control, and carries a greater risk of criminal penalties than similar expression on mainstream media such as the printed press.

Read the full essay here.