<p>A military court in northern Thailand on Monday held a witness examination hearing in a lèse majesté case involving a man with a record of mental illness.</p>

<p>The military court granted bail to four activists of the anti-coup&nbsp;<a href="http://www.prachatai.org/english/category/resistant-citizen">Resistant Citizen&nbsp;</a>group after they were charged with defying the junta’s order.</p>

<p>The Military Court granted bail for the first time by temporarily releasing a seven-months pregnant suspect in bombing of the Criminal Court.</p> <p>The Military Court of Bangkok on Thursday afternoon granted bail to Tatchapan Pokkrong, the 19-year-old wife of Yuttana Yenpinyo, one of the suspects in the bomb attack on the Criminal Court in early March.</p> <p>Tatchapan is so far the only suspect in the case to have been granted bail.</p>

<p>The Military Court postponed the deposition hearing of four embattled democracy activists accused of violating the junta’s ban on public gatherings because additional testimony on the case has not yet been collected. &nbsp;</p> <p>Bangkok’s Military Court on Wednesday postponed the deposition examination of four democracy activists who were charged with defying the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Order No. 7/2014 by holding a political gathering of more than five people on 14 February. If found guilty, the four could be jailed for one year and fined up to 20,000 baht.</p>

<div> <div>The military court sentenced a red-shirt businessman accused of posting content defaming the monarchy on Facebook to 50 years imprisonment, in a trial held in camera, but the jail term was halved because the suspect pleaded guilty.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The man, who wants to remain anonymous and whose given name begins with T and surname with S, was accused of using two Facebook accounts under the name “Yai Daengdueat”. </div></div>

<div>Bundit Aneeya, a 74 year-old writer charged with lèse majesté for the second time, has decided not to plead guilty in the military court and to fight the case. </div>

<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-daa8ee26-463c-42c5-14f5-f66affe34ff4">The police arrested a lèse majesté suspect from northern Thailand and accused him of posting lèse majesté content on Facebook. He was accused of being part of the </span><a href="http://prachatai.org/english/node/4748">Banpodj Network</a>, an alleged criminal organisation, which produces online and other electronic content to discredit the junta and the monarchy.</p>

<div> <div>The military court sentenced an elderly man to three years in jail for writing messages defaming the King on a toilet wall, but since the defendant pleaded guilty, the jail term was halved to one year and six months. &nbsp;&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The military court on Friday morning found Opas C., 67, guilty of writing a lèse majesté message in a restroom of Seacon Square shopping mall in eastern Bangkok.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Due to Opas's poor health, Sauvakon C., Opas's wife, wrote a letter asking the court for mercy. </div></div>

<div> <div>The military court on Thursday sentenced a man to five years in jail for using the name of the monarchy in a scam but since the defendant pleaded guilty, the jail term was halved to two years and six months.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Chainarin N. was found guilty under Article 112 of the Criminal Code for embezzling money through a bogus royal project. </div></div>

<p>(New York, March 19, 2015) –&nbsp;<a href="http://www.hrw.org/asia/thailand" target="_blank">Thai</a>&nbsp;authorities should promptly and impartially investigate the alleged torture of suspects while they were held incommunicado in military custody, Human Rights Watch said today.&nbsp;<br /></p>

<div>A red-shirt activist urged that his case must not be tried by a military court since the crime was committed before the coup makers’ order was issued to have lèse majesté cases tried by military courts.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Thanat Thanawatcharanon, aka Tom Dundee, a country singer-turned-red-shirt activist, who was charged with lèse majesté, has sent a letter to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to help transfer his case to the criminal court.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Among other reasons, he said his alleged lèse majesté speech was delivered in June 2013 whil </div>

<p>(New York, March 17, 2015) – Thai authorities should immediately drop charges against four activists who peacefully expressed opposition to military rule, Human Rights Watch said today.<br /></p>