[Mr. Ampon, who is widely
referred to as “Uncle SMS,” was repeatedly denied bail despite a history of
cancer. The court ruled last year that Mr. Ampon was a flight risk and that his
condition “did not appear to be fatal.” His lawyer, Anon Numpa, said in a
telephone interview on Tuesday that prison may have worsened his condition.]
By Thomas Fuller
 |
Joan Manuel Baliellas/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
A file photo from Dec. 9, 2011,
showing Thai activists wearing
masks representing Ampon
Tangnoppkaul, who died in prison
on Tuesday.
|
A retired truck driver whose 20-year prison term for sending text messages insulting Thailand’s monarchy
highlighted the harshness of the country’s lèse-majesté laws died in prison on
Tuesday, his lawyer said.
Ampon Tangnoppakul, 61,
was sentenced in November to five years for each of four text messages sent
from his mobile phone. Critics of Thailand’s lèse-majesté laws, which are being
used with greater frequency in the twilight of the reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 84,
have seized on the case as evidence that the laws are antiquated and abused for
political purposes.
Mr. Ampon’s death is
likely to sharpen the debate over the laws and the place of the monarchy in
society, an issue laden with emotion in Thailand.
Mr. Ampon, who is widely
referred to as “Uncle SMS,” was repeatedly denied bail despite a history of
cancer. The court ruled last year that Mr. Ampon was a flight risk and that his
condition “did not appear to be fatal.” His lawyer, Anon Numpa, said in a
telephone interview on Tuesday that prison may have worsened his condition.
Mr. Ampon complained of
stomach pains last week and was sent to a prison hospital, where he died. An
autopsy was being performed Tuesday, Mr. Anon said. “His condition would have
been better had he been on the outside,” he said.
Mr. Anon said his client
maintained his innocence and had been in the process of applying for a royal
pardon. The text messages were received by a senior government official in May
2010, a time of high political passions in Thailand when troops were clashing
with protesters on the streets of Bangkok. Mr. Ampon told the court that he did
not know how to send text messages.
Articles published in
the Thai press discussed the possibility that his mobile phone’s identity may
have been pirated. The court, however, said it was convinced beyond a doubt
that the defendant “was the person who sent those four messages.”
The messages damaged the
reputation of King Bhumibol and Queen Sirikit and could incite hatred against
them, the court said. Although it did not reveal the content of the text
messages the court said they went against the “evident” fact that the king and
queen “are full of mercy and concerned about the entire population.”
Thailand’s laws forbid
anyone from defaming, insulting or threatening leading members of the royal
family and offenses carry a prison sentence of up to 15 years for each count.
There are also related laws against “computer crimes.”
Groups of writers and
academics in Thailand say the laws squelch open discussions about the monarchy
and have called for them to be repealed or rewritten.
In a handwritten note to
his lawyer from prison last month, Mr. Ampon said he was “often disheartened,”
and missed his wife and grandchildren.“I’m trying to be patient,” he said. “I
have high hopes that I will get freedom soon.”
[“Austerity need not be Europe’s fate,” Mr. Hollande said shortly after his victory. To that end, he has said he plans to renegotiate the fiscal pact Europe struck this winter to allow for more budgetary breathing room for countries that can still borrow money to support themselves at reasonable rates on the debt markets. He also supports measures to support growth by, for instance, bolstering infrastructure spending.]
By Annie Lowrey
Mr.
Hollande is virtually unknown in Washington, and his policy positions on both
domestic and international affairs remain only lightly sketched out. That is in
stark contrast to the departing president, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose
frequent discussions with and ardent defense of the White House earned him the
nickname “Sarko the American” back home.
But in
the past few months, Mr. Sarkozy has parted from the White House in his support
of the German-led austerity project in the debt-soaked euro zone, a project
that the White House objects to on the grounds that cutting budgets too
soon will lead to sluggish growth and high unemployment across Europe without
satisfying the demands of skittish bond investors.
Mr.
Hollande, in contrast, ran on a promise of rebalancing Europe away from
austerity and toward growth, and his narrow victory is seen in Washington as a
public rejection of governments imposing strict cuts on battered economies.
“Austerity
need not be Europe’s fate,” Mr. Hollande said shortly after his victory. To
that end, he has said he plans to renegotiate the fiscal pact Europe struck
this winter to allow for more budgetary breathing room for countries that can
still borrow money to support themselves at reasonable rates on the debt
markets. He also supports measures to support growth by, for instance,
bolstering infrastructure spending.
The
Obama administration had pushed for such pro-growth policy changes even as Mr.
Sarkozy joined Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in calling for deep spending
cuts.
“If
every time economic growth disappoints, governments are forced to cut spending
or raise taxes immediately to make up for the impact of weaker growth on
deficits, this would risk a self-reinforcing negative spiral of growth-killing
austerity,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told a Congressional committee in
March, comments echoed since then in his statements at many international
forums.
“The
administration hopes, in broad terms, that this election will change the
conversation,” said Edwin M. Truman, a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson
Institute for International Economics. “In principle, you’d be saying, ‘Don’t
tighten your belt!’ to the countries with the scope to do so,” Mr. Truman said.
Mr.
Hollande seems “naturally more palatable to the administration,” said Justin
Vaïsse, the director of research for the Center on the United States and Europe
at the Brookings Institution. The administration seems to reason that “Europe probably
has a better chance of avoiding a breakup or another renewed sovereign debt
crisis by focusing on
growth, rather than just sticking to austerity,” he said.
A senior
administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid
disturbing diplomatic relations, said that the Obama administration looked
forward to working with Mr. Hollande, and that it did not believe that making
changes to the fiscal compact would spook markets or threaten the validity of
the overall agreement, which helped bring down sovereign debt yields this
winter.
Mr.
Truman noted that Mr. Hollande would be “adding some supportive material to
make the compact more growth-friendly,” rather than starting from scratch.
The
official said that the White House did not know the details of how the French
president-elect hoped to change the compact, but that many options were on the
table, including delaying some austerity measures, bolstering the Continent’s
methods for recapitalizing its banks and evening out imbalances between
countries with big deficits and those with surpluses.
Observers
said that though Mr. Hollande was likely to hew closer to the Obama
administration on economic issues, he would almost certainly move further away
from it on foreign and military policy.
Mr.
Sarkozy had led a significant rapprochement between the French and American
governments on foreign affairs, joining Washington in promoting harsh new
penalties for Iran and playing a leading role in gathering an
international coalition to topple the Libyan dictator, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi,
among other actions.
In a
briefing Monday, a State Department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, acknowledged the
administration’s closeness to Mr. Sarkozy, and said he hoped that the bilateral
relationship would deepen with Mr. Hollande.
“We’re
going to have an opportunity to sit down at the highest levels, the president
with President-elect Hollande, to discuss all these issues,” he said. “I’m not
going to prejudge in any way how those discussions might go.”
Mr.
Hollande has a reputation as conciliatory and consensus-driven, and Obama
administration officials stressed that they expected a close ally in his
government.
In an
interview with the Web magazine Slate.fr, Mr. Hollande —
who noted that he speaks English — praised the Obama administration’s foreign
policy and said that the countries had a “convergence” on economic issues. In
the past, he has expressed skepticism about some United States positions on military
issues.
President Obama called Mr. Hollande after his victory
and invited him to meet with him in Washington in advance of international
meetings there and in Chicago this month.