9/18/2019 Case | Freedom of Expression Documentation Center | น อ ลกฎหมายและค เส ภาพ     Reference At the Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road, Bangkok, the Supreme Court confirmed the earlier verdicts of the Court of Appeal and the Court of First Instance, sentencing Chiranuch Premchaiporn, Director of Prachatai, to eight months imprisonment and 20,000 baht fine with a jail term suspended for one year.    The Supreme Court convicted the Prachatai Director under Article 15 of the 2007 Computer Crime Act (CCA) for allowing an allegedly offensive comment about the monarchy to remain on the now defunct Prachatai webboard for 20 days.   The Supreme Court also gave an additional ruling that the Prachatai Director did not fully cooperate with the authorities in deleting illegal content, giving two reasons:   Firstly, the court said while “the Prachatai webboard operates 24 hours at the office” and when the defendant received a police summons indicating the URL of the problematic content on one Saturday at its office, the defendant deleted the content only on Monday. This showed that the defendant did not act to delete the content immediately, the Court said.    Secondly, the judge said Chiranuch was rather passive in providing useful information for the police’s investigation to find the webboard users who produced illegal content. The judge said Chiranuch did not provide computer traffic data of the webboard at first. Later when the police requested for such data, Chiranuch failed to give it because it had exceeded the 90 days period that web intermediary was required to collect the data.    Under Article 18 of the CCA, a service provider must store computer traffic data for at least 90 days. However, in special cases, the authorities can issue an order under Article 26 of the CCA to a service provider to store the data for longer than 90 days, but not exceeding one year.     Trial observation record   Prosecution Witness Hearings 4 February 2011 witness examination , Prosecution Witness No. 1 Mr. Aree Jiworarak, Director of Bureau of Oversight on the Use of Information Technology, Office of the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) Mr. Aree Jiworarak stated that he had been working for the government since 2003 until present and become a competent officer as per the CCA since 2008. His jobs are to monitor websites featuring inappropriate information, through information submitted by public and self exploration. After identifying indecent websites, particularly those deemed lèse-majesté, he would have the screenshot captured (including offensive texts) and have voices recorded (including offensive video clips) and then notify the internet service providers (ISPs) seeking their help to interrupt the dissemination of such information, Then, evidence shall be compiled and submitted to the MICT’s Permanent Secretary and the Minister to apply for court warrants and to ask the service providers to block access to the materials. Then another request shall be made to the National Police Chief asking him to bring the perpetrators to justice. In many instances, service providers and webmasters have been invited to meetings to seek their cooperation. It has been agreed among the attending ISPs that any lèse-majest information shall be blocked. Mr. Aree stated that as for Prachatai, MICT has been conducting the monitoring based on tipoff made by public and various agencies including the police, military, and intelligence units, and the process had taken place even before he became CCA competent officer. Prachatai website can be divided into two sections including news and webboard for people to express themselves and posting their topics. Access to Prachatai website can be made through several ways including inputting the URL prachatai.com, or inputting in google, the phrase ”Prachatai” and then click on the links. As for Prachatai webboard, it can be accessed by any person, but the posters have to first apply for memberships before being allowed to post any message. Mr. Aree went on to describe from counts 1-10; When any illegal posts are identified, similar approaches are applied including compiling actionable materials, screenshot capture, submitting the URLs to ISP and seeking cooperation from Prachatai to block access to such materials, and then submitting the case to the Minister to seek court warrant for the blockade of access. Mr. Aree described every count filed as follows;   Count 1 On page 12 of the Exhibit, it was noted that two posts were blocked and a remark is shown as "the posts are removed by Prachatai". Count 2 According to Mr. Aree, there were a lot of lèse-majesté phrases here. Count 3 Read with a sense of being Thai, one shall find the message lèse-majesté. Count 4 It could not be interpreted otherwise but that the King is accused of being anti-democratic, and thus, it is an insult to the current monarch and the previous ones. Count 5 The message is an attempt to say that what the xxx said was not clear and was not understood. And from checking out the website, the statement had already been removed by Prachatai. Count 6 There was a statement goes that the relationship between elites and the coup. Count 7 According to the post, someone was complicit with the coup, and thus it was an insult on him. Count 8 (link to audio clip containing Da Torpedo’s speech), it upsets him to hear this and it refers to the killing of King Rama VIII, and thus an insult to HM the King. Count 9 After reading it, one shall take it as an insult. Count 10 An offensive statement against HM the Queen about her presiding over a funeral service (organized for a PAD demonstrator who died during the clash with the security officers), and Prachatai decided to remove the post the same day. The prosecutor failed to ask when each of the offensive statement was removed. Mr. Aree further testified that he was unaware if posters of posts found actionable in Counts 1-9 had been arrested, but the poster of message described in Count 10 had been prosecuted and Ms. Chiranuch stood as  a witness in the case. Then, he stated that Prachatai webboard was put under the charge of Ms. Chiranuch. Mr. Aree opined that should there have been a good intention; the post could have been blocked before it appeared on website. Settings could have been made in order that any post shall be subject to verification before being uploaded. Webmasters are obliged to monitor and prevent lèse-majesté postings and ensure that any such posts be deleted. For https://freedom.ilaw.or.th/en/case/112#circumstance_of_arrest 8/26