Police accept lèse majesté complaint against two Facebook users

Police in southern Thailand accepted a lèse majesté complaint filed against two Facebook users for allegedly posting messages defaming the monarchy on a red-shirt radio host’s Facebook profile.

Lt Col Jongserm Preecha, an inquiry officer at Kathu Police Station in the southern province of Phuket on Saturday accepted a lèse majesté complaint filed against two individuals known by their Facebook names as Chaida Bunyothin and Parichat Klinsrisuk. The complaint was filed by Siharat Thinkhaonoi.

According to ASTV Manager Online, Siharat told the police officer that he found the alleged lèse majesté messages posted by the two on the Facebook profile of Itthiphon Sukpaen, aka Beer, an anti-establishment red-shirt radio host on FM.92.50 MHz, a community radio station which belongs to a northern red-shirt group called Love Chiang Mai 51, and the former leader of a red-shirt youth group.

Siharat said that he found Facebook messages defaming the monarchy posted by Chaida on 23 February and 5 March and other lèse majesté messages posted by Parichat on 2 March. He added that the two are staying in Phuket.

In the month of the coup d’état, Itthiphon was on the list of people who were summoned to report to the junta under Order No. 25/2014 of the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), which was issued on 27 May 2014. He, however, did not report in.

Itthiphon has reportedly fled to a neighbouring country.

Itthiphon is also on the list of wanted lèse majesté fugitives announced by the ultra-royalist Rubbish Collection Organisation (RCO), which includes others, such as Somsak Jeamteerasakul, a renowned lèse majesté critic and Saran Chuchai, aka Aum Neko, a well-known anti-junta student activist, both of whom are now in self-imposed exile in Europe.      

After accepting the complaint, the inquiry officer stated that the case is sensitive and the police will gather evidence for further legal procedures as soon as possible.

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