An appeals court in northern Thailand has upheld the conviction and two-year prison sentence of Arnon Nampa, a human rights lawyer and pro-democracy activist, for defaming the monarchy. The Court of Appeals Region 5, sitting in Chiang Mai Province, issued the ruling on 16 July 2026, agreeing with the lower court that a speech he gave in 2020 amounted to defamation of King Rama X.
It is the first appellate decision in any of the 14 cases brought against Nampa under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the provision on lèse-majesté. Together those cases carry sentences amounting to 31 years, nine months and 20 days.
A speech at a campus protest
The charge dates to 23 November 2020, when Nampa spoke at a demonstration organised by pro-democracy students outside the Chiang Mai University Art Center. He called for democratic reform of the Thai monarchy and criticised the transfer of public property into King Rama X’s private ownership. The Chiang Mai Provincial Court sentenced him to three years in March 2025, reducing the term to two years after finding he had given “valuable testimony” at trial.
Nampa has been held at the Bangkok Remand Prison since 26 September 2023, when the first of the lèse-majesté verdicts against him was handed down. He has since been convicted in 11 separate cases under Article 112, over social media posts and speeches at peaceful demonstrations in 2020 and 2021. The most recent, on 20 February 2026, brought a four-year term from the Bangkok Criminal Court, reduced to two years and eight months. Every bail application, and every appeal against a refusal of bail, has been rejected. Nampa denies the charges and maintains that his remarks were legitimate criticism protected by the right to freedom of expression.
Separate prosecutions have run alongside them. In March 2025 the Thanyaburi Provincial Court gave him nine months under Article 116, the sedition provision, over a speech at Thammasat University’s Rangsit campus. The same month, the Bangkok Criminal Court convicted him of contempt after he removed his shirt in the courtroom in protest at its decision to hold his sixth lèse-majesté trial behind closed doors. Three further Article 112 cases against him are still in progress.
Excluded from the amnesty
On 30 August 2024 the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Nampa’s detention was “arbitrary” and urged Thailand to release him “immediately” and grant him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations.
On 8 July 2026 Thailand’s House of Representatives passed an amnesty covering people prosecuted on political grounds between 2005 and 2025. The bill goes to the prime minister before being presented to the King for royal assent — but it explicitly excludes anyone charged or prosecuted for lèse-majesté. That exclusion covers Nampa and 281 others, among them many human rights defenders and 20 minors. Nampa received the 2025 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
