On April 1, 2013, Mr. Somyot Prueksakasemsuk filed an appeal against his conviction as well as a bail application. The court should review the bail application and the conviction as a matter of urgency. April 30, 2013 will mark the two-year anniversary of Somyot’s detention. Somyot was arrested on April 30, 2011, five days after he launched a petition campaign to collect 10,000 signatures required for a parliamentary review of lèse-majesté law.
The Observatory recalls that on January 23, 2013, Somyot was convicted by the Bangkok Criminal Court under Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code (the lèse majesté law) and sentenced to 10 years in prison on two counts of violating the lèse majesté law plus the enactment of a one year suspended sentence for a previous violation in 2009 of the Printing Act.
Somyot was convicted for allowing, as editor, the publication of two satirical articles, written by someone else, in the magazine Voice of Taksin (Voice of the Oppressed) that were deemed as “insulting” to the monarchy. Thailand’s lèse-majesté law prohibits any word or act, which “defames, insults, or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent, or the Regent”. This law places the country in contravention of its international legal obligations to uphold international standards of freedom of expression.
“This case is a test for Thailand’s democracy. Launching a petition to review the lèse-majesté law and the publication of articles that were subsequently deemed to be critical of the monarchy fall within the boundaries of opinions and speech protected by Article 19 of the UDHR and ICCPR”, said Souhayr Belhassen, FIDH President. “Furthermore, an editor must not be held criminally accountable for articles posted by third persons”.
“Somyot’s application for bail should be reviewed on the basis of objective criteria. Pre-trial detention must be lawful, reasonable and necessary in all the circumstances. The authorities have still not provided an adequate justification for his continued detention or a legally sound explanation as to why less restrictive and non-custodial measures are not sufficient to prevent flight and non-tampering with evidence”, said Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General.
The repetition of the ill-defined concept of “national security” as a ground for rejecting the bail applications of those charged under the lèse-majesté law reinforces the perception that the criminalization of speech is increasingly becoming a tool of to legalise oppression in Thailand, including against those documenting human rights violations.
The Observatory recalls that in August 2012, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) found the pre-trial detention of human rights defender Mr. Somyot to be in contravention of international human rights law and standards and called for his release. It added that the lèse majesté laws in Thailand “suppress important debates on matters of public interests, thus putting in jeopardy the right to freedom of opinion and expression”, which is protected by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The UNWGAD called not only for his release but also for compensation to be provided to Somyot.
Accordingly, the Observatory reiterates its call for Somyot’s immediate release from detention and an end to the judicial harassment against him.
Press Contact:
· FIDH: Audrey Couprie / Arthur Manet: + 33 1 43 55 25 18
· OMCT: Delphine Reculeau: + 41 22 809 49 39
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