Activists warned yesterday that lese majeste laws might be abused to create a climate of fear rather than honoured to uphold the monarchy.

"Forced loyalty is not the way to foster genuine ties but will trigger fear, which is not conducive for democracy to thrive," rights advocate Sriprapa Phetmeesri said.

Two academic seminars at Thammasat and Mahidol universities highlighted the concern for draconian enforcement.

At Thammasat, labour activist Chitra Kochadet said she was a victim of a smear campaign portraying her as a disloyal citizen in retaliation for her crusade against unfair lay-offs.

Chitra said her employer even blamed her for causing social divisions before citing her misconstrued activities as grounds for dismissal. The slur about lese majeste was in fact a pretext to weaken the labour movement, she said.

She appealed for the Samak Sundaravej government to intervene and ensure justice for her, but authorities just kept saying her case was sensitive, she said.

Political activist Sombat Boonngam-anong said that when he was detained in prison fighting a defamation case against the 2006 coup, he met a suspect with the pen name "Phraya Pichai", who was charged with posting offensive remarks on various webboards.

Sombat said he got the impression that the suspect was mentally unstable and should be treated, not prosecuted.

"In my opinion, authorities are unfairly invoking the law on lese majeste," he said.

Chulalongkorn lecturer Suthachai Yimprasert said that although he was never booked for challenging the monarchy, he witnessed firsthand the mistreatment of a lese majeste suspect.

He said the suspect known as Da Torpido was repeatedly denied bail pending the completion of the police investigation report.

He questioned why this suspect was kept in custody when other lese majeste suspects were granted temporary release.

Prachatai webmaster Chiranut Premchaiyaporn said she saw no justification for the shutdown of her website when there was no clear legal guidelines on what constitute malicious remarks about the monarchy.

Ramkhamhaeng University law lecturer Charan Kosananan said he wants to see leniency in enforcing and interpreting the lese majeste charge as per Article 112 of the Criminal Code.

He also called for the maximum jail sentence in lese majeste cases to be reduced from 15 years to seven years.