A 26-year-old single mother has been sentenced to 3 years in prison on a royal defamation charge for commenting on the monarchy reformist Facebook group Royalist Marketplace.

Samut Prakan Provincial Court has dismissed a lèse majesté charge against an internet user posting a comment about the late King Rama IX in a Facebook group, on the grounds that the law protects only the current monarch; instead the court imposed a jail sentence for uploading false information, a charge that was not part of the initial indictment.

Access to a Facebook group of 1 million monarchy reformists has been restricted in Thailand. Group founder Pavin Chachavalpongpun says “Let’s fight, bitch” as he opens a new group which registers more than 375,000 members in 5 hours. Facebook also says it is preparing legal action against Thai government as its restriction requests may violate international human rights law.

Puttipong Punnakanta, Minister of the Digital Economy and Society (DES), says that Facebook has violated the Thai Computer Crime Act for blocking only 20 per cent of all illegal content whose removal has been requested by the authorities.