On Thursday 26 January 2023 Mongkol Tirakote, a political activist, was sentenced to 28 years in jail by a court in Thailand.
The culprit is being accused of posting messages on Facebook that it believed insulted the country’s monarchy.
A court in the northern city of Chiang Rai found Mongkol Tirakote guilty in two different royal defamation cases.
It should be remembered that Thailand has been experiencing such cases for instance last year August 2022, A 29-year-old, an online clothing vendor and activist, was found to have violated the lese majeste law in 14 of 27 posts and was apprehended.
The law, considered among the harshest in the world, covers the current king, his queen and heirs, and any official and carries a prison term of three to 15 years per incident.
Defendant Mongkol was also convicted for, a separate royal defamation charge over online posts from last year and will be back in court in March last year.
According to Human Rights Watch, senior researcher Sunai Phasuk said this was the second-highest prison term handed down by a Thai court for a royal defamation case.
Another record occurred in 2021 when a 43-year sentence was passed on a woman identified only as Anchan for insulting the monarchy. Her sentence was originally 87 years and she remains in prison.
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, at least 228 people have been charged with violating the law since November 2020. This includes 18 minors.
