Thailand’s Criminal Court makes man pay 100,000 baht bail out for satirical photo

Thailand’s Criminal Court made a man pay 100,000 baht yesterday to bail himself out of two years imprisonment on a lèse majesté charge. The charge was for pasting a sticker with a logo for his satire page GoKult onto a picture of Thailand’s King. Thai PBS reported the court’s ruling that pasting the sticker “May subject the monarchy to contempt or hatred with an intention to destroy the institution”.

This news comes two days after the Bangkok South Criminal Court rejected a student’s application to study on a scholarship in Germany, as she had also been charged with lèse majesté. The court said if the student was in Germany her parents and guarantor might not be able to ‘control’ her, according to Thai PBS. The student, nicknamed Dear, was charged with lèse majesté after she read a statement in German in front of the German Embassy in Bangkok in 2020.

The scholarship Dear was supposed to study on is highly prestigious.

This week, human rights lawyer Anon Nampa was granted 3 months bail after spending 200 days in prison for lèse majesté and other charges. The organisation Thai Lawyers for Human Rights claims up to 173 people were charged with lèse majesté between November 2020 to Frebruary 2022.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World