Giles Ungpakorn is a liberal commentator and academic who works at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. Police filed formal charges against him on January 20th. His crime? For insulting the king in a 2007 book criticising the previous year's military coup.
Ungpakorn arrived at a Bangkok police station with dozens of supporters to hear the charges. He said the army and Democrat Party-led government were merely using Thailand's draconian lese majeste laws to crush dissent and political opposition.
[Giles Ungpakorn, Political Commentator]: (IN ENGLISH) "In Western democracy, they have a monarchy, full accountability and transparency is allowed. Therefore, one has to wonder what the purpose of the lese majeste law is. In my view lese majeste laws are there in order to protect the military, protect governments that come to power through military action and so on."
Insulting the monarchy is taken extremely seriously in Thailand, where many people regard King Bhumibol Adulyadej as semi-divine. It carries up to 15 years in jail. Critics say the law is frequently abused by politicians since a complaint can be filed by anybody against anybody else, no matter how trivial or tangential the alleged disrespect to the crown.
[Colonel Paisal Luesomboon, Pathumwan Police Station]: "He is charged for lese majeste. Just only one charge."
[Reporter]: "Do you have enough evidence to send him to court?"
[Colonel Paisal Luesomboon]: "We have evidence. The evidence is his book 'The Coup for The Rich' that sold at the Chulalongkorn University Bookstore. Someone read it and reported it to us."
The books were later withdrawn from the bookstore. An Australian author was sentenced to three years in jail on January 19 for defaming the crown prince in a 2005 novel that only sold seven copies.
Others to have fallen foul of the lese majeste law in the past year include a pro-Thaksin minister, a British correspondent for the BBC and a democracy activist who refused to stand up for the king's anthem at the start of a movie screening.
The books were later withdrawn from the bookstore. An Australian author was sentenced to three years in jail on January 19 for defaming the crown prince in a 2005 novel that only sold seven copies.
Others to have fallen foul of the lese majeste law in the past year include a pro-Thaksin minister, a British correspondent for the BBC and a democracy activist who refused to stand up for the king's anthem at the start of a movie screening.
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