A Thai court has sentenced a 25-year-old activist to two years in prison after finding her guilty of insulting the monarchy during a Facebook livestream.
The criminal court in Bangkok handed down the sentence on Monday to Tantawan Tuatulanon, alongside a 600 baht (£13) fine for failing to comply with a police order.
She was convicted under Section 112 of Thailand's criminal code, the country's lese-majeste law, which criminalises insulting or defaming the monarchy, as well as Section 14 of the Computer Crimes Act, over how the livestream itself was broadcast.
She had denied all charges against her.
The case centred on an incident on 5 March 2022, when Tuatulanon livestreamed on Facebook from a footpath on Ratchadamnoen Nok Road, opposite the United Nations' regional headquarters in Bangkok, shortly before a royal motorcade was due to pass.
Farmers had been protesting at the same spot for several days, demanding attention from the authorities, before police cleared the area ahead of the motorcade. The court said when Tuatulanon questioned the conduct of police who dispersed the protesting farmers along the route of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s motorcade in Bangkok, she intended to defame Thailand’s monarchy.
The court found that police had been providing security for the head of state to the same standard observed in other countries, and noted that Tuatulanon, who had studied law, should have understood this.
It ruled that she had repeatedly used language during the livestream that encouraged viewers to make inappropriate references to the king, amounting to an intentional insult rather than a genuine exercise of free expression.
Because the remarks were made on Facebook, the court also found they amounted to introducing false information into a computer system.
On the separate charge of failing to comply with a police order, the court heard that officers had warned Tuatulanon three times to stop livestreaming. Pol Col Somyot Udomraksap, then chief of Nang Loeng police station, subsequently ordered two female officers to restrain her by holding her arms and legs.
The court found the order was lawful, since police were responsible for security at the scene, and that Tuatulanon had ignored it despite the repeated warnings.
She was acquitted, however, of assaulting or using force against an officer.
The court found that because police had not told her she was being detained or where she would be taken, her reaction was one of fear rather than an attempt to resist by force.
Her original three-year sentence was reduced to two years, alongside the 600 baht fine, after the court accepted the usefulness of evidence submitted in her defence as a mitigating factor.
The court also ordered the confiscation of the phone used to make the broadcast. The case was heard over seven hearings between 2023 and 2026.
Tuatulanon was granted bail, on a 100,000 baht surety according to Thai PBS, and barred from leaving the country without the court's permission. Her lawyer, Khumklao Songsomboon, said she would appeal the verdict.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Tuatulanon said she stood by everything she had said during the broadcast.
Tuatulanon and a second activist were separately arrested in 2024 over allegations they had chased the motorcade of Princess Sirindhorn, the king's sister, and face sedition and computer crime charges that have yet to reach trial, according to the rights group.
Section 112 carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison per offence for anyone convicted of insulting, defaming or threatening the king or his family. Human rights groups and legal observers say the law's broad wording has allowed it to be used to target dissent more widely than its original intent.
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