Yesterday we posted on the inhuman capacity of a military court to sentence a mentally-ill man to 10 years in jail, reduced by half for a guilty plea.
Today, a range of media report a mind-numbingly huge 60 year sentence for a man accused of “posting messages and pictures defaming the monarchy in six posts on the social media site” Facebook. This gargantuan sentence was reduced to an eye-watering 30 years because he also entered a guilty plea.
He was sentenced to 10 years on each count and could easily have received 15 years on each charge for a total of 90 years. The military dictatorship and its military courts have become lese majeste deranged.
Pongsak Sriboonpeng, 48, was found guilty of posting messages and pictures defaming the monarchy and received what his lawyer Sasinan Thamnithinan said was a sentence that’s “broken the record…”.
Because Pongsak was arrested under martial law and the military dictatorship, and tried in a military court, “there was no right to appeal against the sentence…”.
He was arrested on 7 January 2015 and was reportedly on a list of 17 people summoned by the military junta on 9 June 2014. According to the police, who paraded Pongsak at a press conference, he used Facebook under the name “sam parr” to allegedly distribute messages and images defamed the monarchy.
Pongsak reportedly admitted his guilt at the press conference, saying his posts were instigated by Facebook friends. He was also said to have attended red-shirt demonstrations. The implication is that red shirts are republicans.
Pongsak is alleged to have cooperated with Jamroen S.
If Thais should have been embarrassed by the sentencing yesterday, the news today is staggering and inhuman.
Political Prisoners in Thailand 
[…] has always had harsh lese-majeste laws. Yet under the new order, a man was recently sentenced to 60 years (that’s SIXTY years) for Facebook posts – reduced to merely half a lifetime on appeal. Military dictator Prayuth […]