Thailand sentences man to record 50 years in prison for insulting the monarchy

CNN —

A Thai appeal court on Thursday extended a man’s prison sentence to a record 50 years for insulting the monarchy, in what is believed to be the toughest penalty ever imposed under the country’s draconian lese majeste law, according to a legal rights group.

Mongkol Thirakhot, 30, an online clothes vendor and political activist from northern Chiang Rai province, was originally sentenced in 2023 to 28 years in prison for social media posts deemed damaging to the king.

On Thursday, the court of appeal in Chiang Rai found Mongkol guilty of about a dozen more violations of the royal insult law and added 22 years to his sentence, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) said in a statement.

Thailand has some of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws, and criticizing the king, queen, or heir apparent can lead to a maximum 15-year prison sentence for each offense — which makes even talking about the royal family fraught with risk.

Sentences for those convicted under Section 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code, or lese majeste law, can be decades long and hundreds of people have been prosecuted in recent years.

Mongkol, also known as “Busbas,” was arrested in April 2021 over 27 posts he made on Facebook during March and April that year. A criminal court found him guilty of 14 violations of lese majeste and sentenced him in January 2023 to 28 years.

It is not clear what the content of the posts contained.

The appeal court on Thursday not only upheld Mongkol’s earlier conviction but in addition found him guilty in 11 of the 13 cases that the lower court had earlier dismissed, and so imposed the longer sentence, TLHR said.

The court told Mongkol his sentence had been reduced by a third due to his cooperation during