Targeting young women with 112

Rung

Amnesty International reports that “Niraphorn ‘Bie’ Onnkhaow, an Amnesty International Digital Rights Champion who recently engaged with the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and Panusaya ‘Rung’ Sithijirawattanakul, a prominent protest leader featured in Amnesty International’s 2021 Write for Rights campaign, were today indicted under the charges of lèse-majesté and violating Thailand’s Computer Crimes Act.”

Bie (clipped from AI)

Amnesty International’s Thailand Researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong stated: “Today’s indictment shows that Thai authorities are continuing to weaponize spurious charges to silence critical voices of young people who want to speak about their human rights…”.

These charges were made in November 2021 but “the public prosecutor only recently decided to proceed with the indictments.” Both women are known to have been members of the student-led United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration and have been “vocal on freedom of expression, digital rights and gender equality.”

They are alleged to have been administrators of the United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration Facebook page and the charges “stem from accusations that they made three posts on the page that were considered as being defamatory towards the monarchy.”

AI “urge[s] the Thai authorities to immediately drop charges against these activists.”