Nut Rungwong, Thai E-News
Medium:Internet
Charge:Anti-State
Imprisoned:May 25, 2014

Nut, the editor of online news aggregator Thai E-News, was sentenced by a military court on November 24, 2014, to nine years in prison on charges of defaming the country's 86-year-old monarch, a criminal offense under the country's lèse majesté law.

He was arrested during a police raid on his house three days after the military seized power in a coup on May 22, 2014 according to news reports. He was refused bail and remained in jail until his trial.

Convictions under Thailand's lèse majesté law, outlined in Article 112 of the criminal code, carry maximum 15-year jail terms. Nut's sentence was commuted to four and a half years because he pled guilty to the anti-royal charges, news reports said.

The charges stemmed from an article by Giles Ungpakorn that Nut published in 2009. Ungpakorn, a Thai university professor and political writer, faces separate lèse majesté charges and lives in exile in the United Kingdom. Thai E-News is blocked inside Thailand by the Information and Communication Technology Ministry, but continued to operate after Nut's arrest in May, reports said. He was being held at Bangkok's Remand Prison.

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