<div> <div>Pawinee Chumsri, a lawyer at Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, has won the 2017 Somchai Neelapaijit Award. Pawinee urged society to action, saying that, ‘If people don’t fight, lawyers really can’t achieve anything’.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>On 11 March 2017, the Somchai Neelapaijit Memorial Fund announced <a href="http://prachatai.org/journal/2017/03/70534">Pawinee Chumsri as the winner of its annual award</a>, commending an outstanding human rights advocate. </div></div>

<div>Thai authorities are waging a campaign to criminalize and punish dissent by targeting civil society and political activists who peacefully exercise their rights to freedom of expression and assembly, a new briefing from Amnesty International said today.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Dozens of human rights defenders, pro-democracy activists and others are currently being investigated and prosecuted under draconian laws and decrees, which are used as tools to silence critics by Thailand’s military government.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>“The Thai authorities have created a fearful environment w </div>

<div>The first case of lèse-majesté under Thailand’s new &nbsp;King Vajiralongkorn accuses an undergraduate law student. Both Jatupat ‘Pai’ Boonpattararaksa’s youthful grin in newspapers and the petty nature of his crime — sharing a BBC article on his Facebook wall — make the young man a puzzling suspect. He does not appear as one of the country’s most dastardly criminals..&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Instead, Pai seems startlingly relatable — something to unsettle the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO). </div>

<p><em>The revised Computer Crime Act has introduced the novel offence of ‘distorted information’.&nbsp; Once the Act comes into force, any information which is transmitted online, like these articles, and which is deliberately false, can serve as the basis for a criminal prosecution.&nbsp;</em></p>