RATCHABURI: The Appeal Court has upheld a lower court ruling to acquit four students and a reporter charged with violating the constitutional referendum law in 2016.
The five defendants -- Pakorn Areekul, Anucha Rungmorakot, Anan Lokate, Thaweesak Kerdphokha and Panuwat Songsawat -- showed up at the Ratchaburi provincial court on Thursday to hear the Appeal Court’s ruling.
They were prosecuted for collaborating to publicly disseminate content inconsistent with facts or in a violent, aggressive, impolite, seditious or threatening manner for the purpose of discouraging voters from casting the ballot or voting in a particular way on the 2016 constitution draft. They were accused of distributing stickers with a message "Let’s vote no on Aug 7 on the future we can’t choose".
On July10, 2016, Mr Pakorn, Mr Anan and Mr Anucha, student activitst of the New Democracy Movement, travelled from Bangkok to Ban Pong district in Ratchaburi province to give moral support to the activists who had been arrested for breaking the referendum law. Mr Taweesak, a reporter from Prachatai news outlet, also travelled with them in the same vehicle.
Police seized from them fliers, documents, stickers, bookmarks and vinyl posters. One of their friends, Mr Panuwat, had been arrested earlier for the same charge.
The Ratchaburi provincial court earlier acquitted the five defendants of the charge.
The Appeal Court on Thursday upheld the lower court’s ruling after it found the allegations against the defendants were a mere speculation by the plaintiff. There was no evidence showing that they had violated the constitutional referendum law.
Some 16.8 million people, or 61.3%, voted to accepted the constitution three years ago while 10.6 million (38.6%) rejected it. The turnout rat was 59.4%, or 29.7 million.