Thai man faces record 50-year sentence for royal defamation

A Thai man from Chiang Rai faces an unprecedented 50 year imprisonment sentence for royal defamation. This comes after the Court of Appeal added to his existing convictions, according to a report by Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) released on today.

The sentence, delivered to 30 year old Mongkol Busbas Thirakot, is reportedly the longest ever served for offences under Section 112 of the Criminal Code, also known as the lese-majeste law. This information was disclosed by the lawyers’ group in a recent social media post.

The previous record was held by Anchan Preelert, a former senior Revenue Department official, who was convicted in January 2021. Anchan was sentenced to an 87 year jail term for breaching Section 112 and the Computer Crime Act with defamatory posts about the monarch across several social media platforms. However, her sentence was later halved to 43 years,…