<p dir="ltr">Two lѐse majesté convicts have been released on royal pardons after being imprisoned for almost two years.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The Bureau of the Royal Household of the Thai Monarchy recently approved the requests for royal pardons from an editor of the <a href="http://www.thaienews.blogspot.com/">Thai E News website</a> with the pseudonym ‘Somsak Pakdeedech’ and Pol Sgt Maj Prasit Chaisrisa, a former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Pheu Thai Party, who were both convicted under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the lѐse majesté law.</p>
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<div>The Criminal Court has sentenced Sgt Prasit Chaisrisa, a former Pheu Thai MP and red-shirt figure, to five years in jail, but since the defendant pleaded guilty, the jail term was halved to two years and six months. </div>
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<div>The court ruled that Prasit defamed the King during a speech at an event titled “Stop Overthrowing Democracy,” held at the Imperial World Ladprao Department Store on 7 May 2014. </div>
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<div>The court reasoned that the jail term should not be suspended because the speech greatly damaged the beloved monarchical instituti
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<div>Sgt Prasit Chaisrisa, a former Pheu Thai MP and red-shirt figure, on Monday pleaded guilty to lèse </div>
<div>majesté charges before the criminal court, after he earlier denied all allegations.</div>
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<div>Prasit was accused of defaming the King during a speech on an event titled “Stop Overthrowing Democracy,” held at Imperial World Ladprao Department Store on 7 May 2014. A staff member of the military Judge Advocate General’s Office filed a police complaint against him. He has been detained at the Bangkok Remand Prison since his arrest on 29 May.
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<div><a href="http://prachatai.org/english/node/4338">Akaradej</a> (last name withheld due to privacy concerns) on Tuesday pleaded guilty before the Court to posting comments deemed lèse majesté on Facebook.
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<div>Coup makers, since 1976 coup d’etat, have regularly cited a surge of lese majeste as a prerequisite for overthrowing an elected government. The 2006 coup, when lese majeste was cited as one of the major reasons, marked a surge of the lese majeste cases. The atrocity in April-May 2010, where almost 100 of people were killed during the military crackdown on anti-establishment red-shirt protesters, also contributed to a dramatic rise of lese majeste cases, especially the offences committed online.
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