Case | Freedom of Expression Documentation Center | น 9/18/2019 อ ลกฎหมายและค เส ภาพ   Reference Stared Case name Chiranuch Premchaiporn: Director of Prachatai Name of persons / Name of Media Chiranuch Premchaiporn Case status Judgment / End of trial Status of Accused Sentence suspended Offense / order Article 14 (2) Computer Related Crime Act, Article 14 (3) Computer Related Crime Act, Article 15 Computer Related Crime Act Summary Chiranuch, a service provider of Prachatai website and web administrator of Prachatai webboard,  was charged as a medium and for her failure to have timely remove illegal messages from the webboard. The messages are deemed an insult to the King, the Queen or the Heir Apparent. Chiranuch is accused of being complicit or consenting to have the opinions posted on Prachatai webboard under Section 15 of Computer-related Crime Act 2007 (CCA). Chiranuch was arrested on 6 March 2009. She fought the case and got bail. She argued that she had done her besy to remove any illegal content but the poated messages are too many then she cannot removed them fast enough. The Criminal Court dismissed for 9 messages given that Chiranuch did try to remove them. For the only one message that stayed for 20 days before she recieved a warrant and removed it, the Court sees as a complicity or consent. Therefore, Chiranuch was sentenced for 1 year in prison and 30,000 baht fine. The penalty was reduce by one third. The plaintiff and the defendant submitted an appeal. The Court of Appeal later reaffimred the first verdict and the defendant submitted the case to The Supreme Court. On 23 December 2015, The Supreme Court again reaffirmed the verdict. The case is now ended and leave the only interpretation precedent of the online intermediary liability in Section 15 of CCA. Basic information   Background of accused Ms. Chiranuch Premchaiporn is Director of Prachatai website, an independent online news network. Founded in 2004, it aims to feature voices of vulnerable groups and to cover news not reported by mainstream media. It is a project under the Foundation for Community Educational Media, a not-for-profit organization.   Main features of Prachatai website include news. It is operated by a small editorial team consisted of 6-8 staff members based in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Songkhla plus a network of citizen journalists around the country. Prachatai is founded to give space and voice to the minorities. Apart from news section, Prachatai provides space for publishing https://freedom.ilaw.or.th/en/case/112#circumstance_of_arrest 1/26