16 October 2015•Update: 18 October 2015
By CS Thana
BANGKOK
A 68-year-old man serving an 18-month sentence for scribbling anti-monarchy graffiti inside a shopping mall toilet in Thailand has been found guilty of a second offence -- also on a toilet door.
On Friday, the Bangkok Military Court released a statement saying that Ophas Chansuksei will now serve an additional 18 months for his scribblings on a different door in a different cubicle.
The sentence will begin on completion of the original jail term.
Chansuksei's original sentence had been commuted from three years to 18 months as he had confessed to the crime.
Thailand has some of the harshest lese-majeste laws in the world, designed to protect the country's highly revered monarch and his family, whom the ruling junta view as above politics.
The crime is punishable with a jail sentence of 3-15 years.
Since the ruling junta overthrew the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra last year, the number of cases of people detained for lese-majeste -- either awaiting trial or already sentenced -- has soared.
Judges have also considerably extended the scope of the law by including other members of the royal family -- beyond the king, the queen, the heir or the regent as the law specifies-- to even include monarchs who reigned centuries ago.
