Police have charged a prominent Thai political commentator with insulting Thailand’s revered king in a 2007 book — a day after an Australian writer was jailed for three years for a similar offence.
Ji Ungpakorn, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University — one of the country’s leading universities — denied the charges and accused the government of increasingly using Thailand’s harsh lese majeste laws to silence criticism.
“This is a way of shutting up people and silencing opponents, especially opponents to the military dictatorship in 2006,” said Ji, who also writes under the name Giles Ji Ungpakorn.
He said he was being targeted for political reasons because his 2007 book, “A Coup for the Rich,” criticized the military for launching a coup that ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Police filed charges today, Ji said, but must still submit the case to the public prosecutor, who decides whether to bring the case to trial.