A top world press body warned today that Thailand's contentious royal defamation law was creating a "climate of fear" and being misused to wrongly imprison journalists.
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers is "deeply concerned" by the misuse of the lese majeste rules, its president Jacob Mathew said at the four-day annual World Newspaper Congress in Bangkok.
Condemning "undue arrests and imprisonments" of journalists, editors and publishers, Mathew said that the enforcement of the law runs "counter to the principles of press freedom" and is "a violation of the rights of citizens".
Anyone convicted of insulting the Thai king, queen, heir or regent faces up to 15 years in prison on each count.
"As anyone can accuse anyone else of committing an act of lese majeste, the misuse of the law has created a climate of fear," Mathew said.
The royal family is a highly sensitive subject in politically turbulent Thailand. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 85, is revered by many Thais but has been in hospital since September 2009.
Rights campaigners say the lese majeste law has been politicised, noting that many of those charged are linked to the "Red Shirt" protest movement, which is broadly loyal to fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.
In January a 51-year-old editor, Somyot Prueksakasemsuk, was jailed for 11 years in connection with two articles that appeared in his magazine, to the dismay of human rights defenders.
Two months of mass street protests by the Red Shirts against the previous government in early 2010 triggered the kingdom's worst civil violence in decades with 90 people killed, mostly in a bloody military crackdown.
The authorities have blocked thousands of web pages deemed insulting to the monarchy.
Mathew addressed the issue in his speech saying "the government has shown a tendency to control the Internet, and this is a matter of concern".
The conference, attended by more than 1,500 newspaper editors and other media figures, runs until June 5.
