Most readers will probably know that Thailand judges can hand out sentences that go into scores of years in prison, but by law these sentences are automatically reduced to a maximum of 50 years. Most will also know that "useful testimony" can lead to a reduced sentence and that a "confession" means that sentences are…
20 01 2021
Clipped from Prachatai
Following the 2014 military coup, the junta set about repressing opponents, wielding Article 112. This mostly involved red shirts, their associates and those considered anti-monarchist. The junta used military courts and secret trials and the tame and royalist judiciary began handing out mammoth lese majeste sentences, some of them in the range 30-50 years.
After the much-hyped 112 hiatus, attributed to King Vajiralongkorn, the anti-monarchism of the past year or so has scared the palace and the regime witless. The result is that old, languishing cases are back on, there are some 54 new cases, and the sentences being meted out are again in stratospheric realms of the unbelievable.