Censorship in Thailand - Individual Speech

Individual Speech

Although freedom of speech was guaranteed by the 1997 Constitution, it was limited by several laws. The King may not be spoken ill of and lèse majesté laws are in force. In 1986, Deputy Interior Minister Veera Musikapong was convicted, imprisoned, and banned from politics for a campaign speech in which he noted that if he were born the Crown Prince, he "would be drinking whiskey instead of standing here getting pains in my knees."

The judgment of Thai courts may not be criticized. After a controversial ruling in July 2006 in which the Criminal Court jailed three Election Commissioners, the court worked with the police to identify 16 individuals who were captured on TV news footage criticizing the judgement. The Court later found all the individuals guilty and gave jail terms to 4 of them. The maximum jail sentence for the offense is seven years.

Furthermore, the use of defamation laws was frequently used to silence dissidents during the Thaksin administration, often by the Prime Minister himself. This led to a backlog in the courts of defamation suits and counter suits.