THAILAND: ACTIVIST JAILED FOR 18 YEARS FOR INSULTING MONARCHY

THAILAND: ACTIVIST JAILED FOR 18 YEARS FOR INSULTING MONARCHY

An opposition activist in Thailand was sentenced to 18 years in jail last week for insulting the monarchy, report the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) and international news media.

On 28 August Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul was convicted on three counts of lese majeste, each carrying a six-year jail term, for remarks that she made in speeches last year criticising the 2006 coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The speeches were made at rallies of the "Red Shirts", the name given to Thaksin supporters who believe the current government led by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is illegitimate, and who call for Thaksin to be reinstated.

Authorities have also blocked excerpts of Daranee's speeches on YouTube, which had been the basis for the complaints filed against her, says SEAPA.

The judge hearing Daranee's case closed the court to the public and the media last month, citing national security concerns. And because Daranee showed no remorse, the court found no cause for leniency, reports SEAPA.

"It is what I expected to happen," Daranee told reporters after the verdict. "I will appeal."

Arrested on 22 July 2008, Daranee has been denied bail three times despite her lawyers' pleas, and claims that her health may be deteriorating.

The decision to fight the charges is unusual. According to news reports, human rights lawyers say the charges are difficult to beat in a nation known for its intense loyalty to the Royal Family, and most defendants choose to plead guilty and beg the King for mercy.

Several people have been charged with lese majeste in recent years, such as a Thai engineer who got 10 years for sending online pictures that offended the Royal Family, and former BBC correspondent Jonathan Head, who presided over a public debate.

Police are investigating the entire board of the Thailand Foreign Correspondents' Club for possible breaches of the laws, say SEAPA and news reports.

Under current rules, anybody can file a complaint of lese majeste, which has led to many Thai politicians using the laws as a tool to silence their rivals.

According to SEAPA, lese majeste charges have surged since the 2006 coup, and are punishable by up to 15 years in jail.

Earlier this year Abhisit said he would look into ensuring the laws were not abused but little progress has been made.

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Activist gets 18-year prison term for lese majeste:
http://www.ifex.org/thailand/2009/08/28/da_torpedo_sentenced/

More on the web:
-Red Shirt activist jailed for 18 years for insulting Thai Royal Family
(The Times):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6814184.ece

From The Times

August 29, 2009

Red Shirt activist jailed for 18 years for insulting Thai Royal Family

Sian Powell in Bangkok

A court in Bangkok sentenced a political activist to 18 years in prison yesterday for insulting the Thai Royal Family, the latest in a flurry of cases that analysts say are inhibiting freedom of speech and stifling political dissent.

Daranee Charnchoengsilpakul was convicted of three charges of lèse-majesté for remarks that she made in speeches last year criticising the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra, who was then the Prime Minister.

Mr Thaksin, who was convicted in absentia last year of breaching conflict of interest laws and lives abroad to avoid a jail term, remains a polarising figure in Thai politics.

Mr Thaksin’s Red Shirt supporters plan to rally again in central Bangkok tomorrow to demand change. They are furious with the Government led by Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister, which they deem illegitimate, and want Mr Thaksin to be reinstated.

When his supporters protested in April they disrupted an Asean summit and brought parts of Bangkok to a standstill.

The Red Shirts, known formally as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), said that the rally tomorrow will be peaceful.

The Government, however, has invoked the Internal Security Act to ban gatherings at three of the locations used for Red Shirt rallies, and deployed troops and police.

Red Shirt leaders fear provocateurs will try and to cause trouble. “If any unrest occurs, it will not be caused by the Red Shirts,” Jatuporn Prompan, the UDD leader, told Thai media yesterday.

Daranee, 46, was sentenced to three six-year prison terms to run consecutively for insulting the monarchy in speeches that she gave at Red Shirt rallies. Prommas Phoo-sang, the judge, closed the court to the public and the media last month, citing reasons of national security.

“It is what I expected to happen,” Daranee said after the verdict. “I will appeal.” The decision to fight the charges is unusual.

Human rights lawyers said that the charges are difficult to beat in a nation known for its intense loyalty to the Royal Family, and most defendants choose to plead guilty and beg the King for mercy.

Several people have been charged with or investigated over lèse-majesté in recent years. They include a man who refused to stand for the royal anthem in a cinema, the Australian author Harry Nicolaides, whose book sold seven copies, and the former BBC correspondent Jonathan Head, who presided over a public debate.

Police are investigating the entire board of the Thailand Foreign Correspondents’ Club for possible breaches of the laws.

Many Thai politicians appear to regard lèse-majesté laws as a tool to use against their opponents. Earlier this year Mr Abhisit said that his Government would discuss amending the laws but little progress has been made.

SRI LANKA: TAMIL JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS OF HARD LABOUR

SRI LANKA: TAMIL JOURNALIST SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS OF HARD LABOUR

Popular Tamil journalist J.S. Tissainayagam has been sentenced to 20 years hard labour on charges of supporting terrorism and inciting racial hatred,becoming the first journalist to be convicted under Sri Lanka's draconian anti-terrorism law, report Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ),Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and other IFEX members.

An English-language columnist for the Sri Lankan "Sunday Times" and editor of the news website OutreachSL, Tissainayagam was arrested on 7 March 2008.

He spent five months in prison without charge before his indictment in
August 2008 for promoting terrorism through the magazine "Northeastern
Monthly", which he briefly published in 2006. The magazine criticised the government's role in the war against the Tamil Tiger rebels and accused authorities of withholding food and other essential items from
Tamil-majority areas.

On 31 August, a High Court judge ruled that Tissainayagam's articles
violated the law because they were aimed at creating "communal disharmony."

The court also found that he had received money from the LTTE to fund his website, but RSF has established that the site was funded by a German aid project.

"The imposition of this extremely severe sentence on Tissainayagam suggests that some Sri Lanka judges confuse justice with revenge," RSF said. "With the help of confessions extracted by force and information that was false or distorted, the court has used an anti-terrorism law that was intended for terrorists, not for journalists and human rights activists."

According to the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which has been campaigning tirelessly for his release, Tissainayagam was repeatedly tortured and denied medical treatment while in prison.

Despite the end of the war, the Sri Lankan state continues to attack
journalists who do not support its policies.

According to the International Press Institute (IPI), 12 journalists have been killed in Sri Lanka since 2006, and many others have been harassed, threatened and arrested. RSF has reported that Sri Lanka is one of the worst-hit countries in the world when it comes to the kidnap, arrest and disappearance of journalists.

CPJ announced that it will honour Tissainayagam with a 2009 International Press Freedom Award. Meanwhile, the Globe Media Forum and RSF report that Tissainayagam will be the first winner of the Peter Mackler Prize, "a newly created award for journalists who display great courage and professional integrity in countries where press freedom is not respected."

Related stories on IFEX.org:
- Journalist sentenced to 20-year jail term under terror law:
http://www.ifex.org/sri_lanka/2009/09/01/tissainayagam_sentenced/

TAKE ACTION:

Please write polite letters to the Sri Lankan authorities calling for:

• The immediate and unconditional release of prisoner of conscience, J.S. Tissainayagam who has been targeted for his work as a journalist;
  
  
• Protection of the rights to life, liberty and security of media workers in compliance with Sri Lanka’s obligations under international law;
  
  
• An end to Sri Lanka's climate of impunity for attacks on the media which has made it impossible to get an accurate impartial picture of what is happening in the country.
  

WRITE TO:

His Excellency the President Mahinda Rajapaksa
Presidential Secretariat
Colombo 1
Sri Lanka
Fax: + 94 11 2446657
Email: priu@presidentsoffice.lk or modadm@sltnet.lk

Salutation: Your Excellency

His Excellency Dayananda Rupasoma Perera
High Commissioner
High Commission for the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
333 Laurier Avenue West, Suite 1204
Ottawa, ON, K1P 1C1
Canada
Fax: + 613 238-8448
Email: slhcit@rogers.com

Salutation: Your Excellency

FURTHER BACKGROUND:

The conflict in Sri Lanka is between government forces, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and armed Tamil groups alleged to be aligned with the government. The conflict in the north and east of Sri Lanka has continued to escalate since the end of a ceasefire agreement on 16 January 2008. There is no independent reporting of the conflict and media coverage of war has effectively been silenced – through threats, restrictions and violence. The restrictions placed on freedom of expression in Sri Lanka far exceed those which may legitimately be imposed for reasons such as national security. Violations of journalists’ right to life and freedom from torture and ill-treatment can never be justified in the name of national security and constitute violations of Sri Lanka’s obligations under international law.

At least 14 media workers have been unlawfully killed since 2006 and others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and allegedly disappeared. There is a strong need for media freedom in Sri Lanka, where deaths on all sides are very high and large numbers of civilians are caught in the crossfire. All parties to the conflict are responsible for grave violations of human rights and breaches of international humanitarian law.

Source : http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/sri_lanka_journalist_silenced.php

--------------- The Newyork Times ---------------------

Sri Lankan Editor Lauded by Obama Is Sentenced to 20 Years

By LYDIA POLGREEN

Published: August 31, 2009
On World Press Freedom Day in May, President Obama held up J. S. Tissainayagam, the editor of a crusading magazine in Sri Lanka who has been jailed since March 2008, as a symbol of the oppression of the media.

On Monday, a judge in Sri Lanka sentenced Mr. Tissainayagam to 20 years of hard labor for violating the country’s tough antiterrorism laws by writing articles highly critical of a government military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels who had controlled a large chunk of Sri Lanka’s north.

Mr. Tissainayagam, who is Tamil, was the editor of the now-defunct North Eastern Monthly magazine, and was accused of accepting money and other support from the Tigers. He was convicted under laws that give harsh sentences for offenses like using racially divisive language or promoting disharmony. These laws were enacted in response to the Tamil Tiger insurgency. The insurgents, members of the Hindu Tamil minority, sought a separate state from Sri Lanka’s Buddhist, Sinhalese majority. The government decisively defeated the Tigers in a bloody final battle on a strip of beach in northern Sri Lanka in May, ending one of Asia’s longest civil wars.

As is often the case with local journalists in conflict zones, Mr. Tissainayagam’s reporting reflected the prevailing point of view of the minority to which he belonged, but the government argued that his work went further.

“The Constitution itself gives freedom of press, but that doesn’t allow anybody to spread false information to spur ethnic violence,” Sudarshana DeSilva, the prosecutor, told the court, Reuters reported.

But rights advocates say that Mr. Tissainayagam’s sentence reflects the plight of Sri Lanka’s embattled press corps. At least seven journalists have been killed since 2007, including some singled out by the Tamil Tigers. Many more have fled the country.

“It is very serious blow,” said Sanjana Hattotuwa, editor of Groundviews, a citizen journalism Web site. “It sends a chilling message that the independent expression of opinion is no longer tolerated in Sri Lanka.”

Lucien Rajakarunanayake, spokesman for Sri Lanka’s president and a columnist, said that Mr. Tissainayagam had the right to appeal.

“The court has believed the evidence placed before it,” Mr. Rajakarunanayake said. “That he did accept money from a terrorist organization and did work that furthered the cause of terrorism in this country.”

The sentence is sure to increase pressure from the West on Sri Lanka’s government, which has been criticized for its handling of the last battle against the Tamil Tigers and the treatment of Tamils displaced by the war.

Mr. Tissainayagam’s lawyer told reporters that he planned to appeal. Though he confessed, he later said that the confession was given under duress. Legal experts said that the antiterrorism laws under which he was convicted violated the Constitution.

Asanga Welikala, a lawyer who has written on press freedom in Sri Lanka, said that the law was so vague that practically any speech could be prosecuted.

“Totally unacceptable that we should have such a law, and even more unacceptable that a court of law should feel that this journalist should get the maximum possible sentence under that law for simply doing his job,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/world/asia/01lanka.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Remember the Disappeared

Sunday 30th August marks the International Day of the Disappeared

Ratify the Convention against Enforced Disappearance NOW!


The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance was adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 2006.

We only need 7 more countries to ratify the Convention in order for it to enter into force.

Sunday 30th August marks the International Day of the Disappeared

In El Salvador, Ernestina and Erlinda Serrano Cruz were seven and three years old, respectively, when they disappeared on 2 June 1982.

In Guatemala, 200,000 people disappeared or were extra-judicially executed during the internal armed conflict of 1960 – 1996.

These are just a few examples of the thousands of people who have been victims of enforced disappearances around the world. Their family members and friends have no knowledge of their fate.

Stand Together and Remember the Disappeared

Call on governments to ratify the Convention! Join the movement in sending a letter to the countries we are targeting now!


INDIVIDUAL AT RISK


James Balao, an activist working on Indigenous Peoples rights, was forcibly disappeared on 17 September 2008 in Baguio City, Philippines. He was last seen near his home being roughly bundled by armed men into a white van. One of the men who took him shouted at onlookers, and told them not to interfere because they were police officers arresting James. A court has ordered the authorities to reveal where he is, and do no further harm to him, but has not authorised his family to look for him in places of detention. He is one of hundreds of Filipinos who have been forcibly disappeared and have not been found yet .

James, a member of the Indigenous Benguet Ibaloi tribe in the Cordillera region in Northern Philippines, dedicated himself to research and fighting for Indigenous Peoples rights, particularly ancestral land rights. He contributed to the drafting of the Philippines’ Constitution. He is one of the founding members of the Cordillera People's Alliance (CPA), an alliance of local organizations from the different Indigenous tribes in the Cordillera region.

Take action!
Join the call to Surface James Balao and Stop Enforced Disappearances in the Philippines.

Take photos of yourself or with friends, ideally in front of a local landmark to show international solidarity, holding up a message such as: "End Enforced Disappearances -- the world is watching" or "Where is James Balao?"

The photos will be used as part of an international solidarity campaign on the one-year anniversary of James' disappearance. Email photos to philmasteam@gmail.com or online.communities@amnesty.org by 31 October 2009.