CNN
A progressive Thai lawmaker was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday on charges of insulting the monarchy and other related offenses over two social media posts, according to the advocacy group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
Rukchanok Srinok, 29, a lawmaker with the opposition Move Forward Party, was found guilty of lese majeste and breaching the Computer Crimes Act by Thailand’s Criminal Court for two posts made on the social media platform X in 2020.
Thailand has some of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws, and criticizing the King, Queen, or heir apparent can lead to a maximum 15-year prison sentence for each offense, which makes even talking about the royal family fraught with risk.
Sentences for those convicted under Article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code can be decades long and hundreds of people have been prosecuted in recent years.
One post included criticism of the government’s Covid-19 vaccine procurement which included a pharmaceutical company linked to the king, TLHR said. Another was a retweet of a photo from a 2020 protest that contained messages deemed by the court to be anti-monarchy, said TLHR, which is monitoring her case.
Rukchanok, also known as “Ice,” was granted bail while she appeals the sentence, according to TLHR. After leaving court, she posted a message on her Facebook page saying she was back at work in parliament and that she would “like to be the voice for all 112 defendants to be granted bail.”
Before entering politics in 2023, Rukchanok rose to prominence as an activist and outspoken critic of the former government of Prayut Chan-o-cha, an ex-general who seized power in a coup in 2014.
Her party Move Forward won the most votes in Thailand’s May election but was prevented from forming a government by the country’s powerful conservative establishment over the party’s bid to reform the lese majeste laws.
In recent years, young people have been leading widespread calls for deep changes to how Thailand is run.
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