Once again, Thailand’s infamous Article 112 or "lèse-majesté" law has been strongly condemned by the UN in the latest opinions by their Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD). FIDH and its member organisations Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) and Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw) submitted the cases of Sasiphimon Patomwongfangam and Thiansutham Suthijitseranee to them in March 2016. On 24 August 2017, the WGAD declared their detention arbitrary and called on the Thai authorities to release them immediately.
FIDH and its Thai member organisations continue to work to end the abuse of lèse-majesté prosecutions and bring cases before the UN’s working bodies which have now declared six lèse-majesté detentions as arbitrary. The WGAD also urged the Thai government to bring Article 112 of the Criminal Code into conformity with Thailand’s commitments under international human rights law.
Read more on the cases here
See also: UN body slams ongoing violations of civil and political rights