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Criticism Mounts Against Thai Royal Defamation Law

VOA News

   BANGKOK - A tough royal defamation law in Thailand must be repealed
   rather than wielded against a young pro-democracy movement, protesters,
   law scholars and rights defenders told VOA, as calls mount for the
   international community to condemn a section of the penal code that
   smothers criticism of the monarchy.

   The kingdom, Southeast Asia's second largest economy and a
   strategically pivotal nation wooed by both the U.S. and China, is
   locked in a political crisis, the latest chapter in a recent history
   defined by coups, aborted civilian governments and rival street
   protests.

   The role of the palace, headed by King Maha Vajiralongkorn -- by some
   estimates the world's richest monarch -- has been thrust to the center
   of protester demands for sweeping reforms to a kingdom where the
   arch-royalist army reaches deep into politics and a super-rich
   establishment strides over one of Asia's most unequal countries.

   Months of protests calling for the end of the battered government of
   ex-army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha and a new constitution to unplug the
   military from power, have waded into the dangerous ground of monarchy
   reform.

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