Thai arrested for sending lèse majesté clips-Prachatai

[FACT comments: Internet users must know how to protect their privacy and anonymity if they play with lèse majesty. Suwicha Thakor created two YouTube channels for posting StopLeseMajeste videos and now Nat Sattayapornpisut has been arrested for creating his own videos for distribution by StopLese Majeste on YouTube and in other videos fora. Sad and unnecessary even if we want complete repeal of the Computer Crimes Act.]

Thai man arrested for sending lèse majesté clips to a British blogger in Spain

Prachatai: October 16, 2009

http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/1447

The Criminal Court has agreed to a request by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to detain Nat Sattayapornpisut, 27, who has been charged under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act after he was found to have sent offensive clips to a blog called ‘StopLeseMajeste’.

On 15 Oct, DSI investigator Pol Capt Korawat Jaithiang brought the accused to Court to request initial detention for 12 days, from 15 – 26 Oct, for further investigation, as the DSI needed him to undergo a polygraph (lie-detector) test, and cooperate with investigators in sorting information on his computer seized by the authorities.  The accused has been detained at the DSI office.

According to the DSI, the DSI Board decided on 29 Aug 2008 to investigate the case of clips posted on Youtube.  Suwicha Thakor and an alias StopLeseMajeste were found to be the culprits.

StopLeseMajeste was later found to be Emilio Esteban, a 46 year-old Briton living in Spain, who had been in contact with Suwicha via e-mail.  Between 19 April 2008 and 15 September 2009, Esteban, who accessed the internet in Spain, published contents offensive to the throne on his weblogs, calling for abolition of the lèse majesté laws.

The DSI investigators asked for court permission to access Esteban’s e-mails, and found that on 21-23 July 2009 Nat had sent him three offensive clips which were posted on his blogs.

The authorities asked the court for an arrest warrant on 13 Oct and made the arrest on the same day.

Nat was charged under the 2007 Computer Crimes Act and confessed to the charges.

Source:

http://www.manager.co.th/Crime/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9520000122735