April Fools' Tweet Considered Insults To The Kingdom, Thai Airline Crew Complained To Police

Illustration of the Thai Vietjet airline fleet. (Wikimedia Commons/Anna Zvereva)

JAKARTA - An April Fool's joke tweeted by staff at Thai airline Vietjet could lead to criminal prosecution, after an activist lawyer filed a complaint with the police alleging insulting Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn.

Police will decide later whether to proceed with the criminal case under the strict Lese Majeste Act, which makes defamation of the monarchy punishable by up to 15 years in prison, against staff of the airline which is an offshoot of Vietnam's Vietjet Aviation JSC.

The official Thai Vietjet account tweeted on April 1 that the airline was launching a new international route between Thailand's Nan Province and Germany's Munich, sparking online outrage and threats of a boycott among ultra-royalists.

The offending tweet was later deleted and the airline apologized the following day, in a statement saying senior management was unaware of the tweet advertising "flight routes between provinces in Thailand and cities in Europe, which caused much public backlash".

The tweet did not mention King Maha Vajiralongkorn, 69, who has a home in Germany, where he spent time with Royal Empress Sineenat Wongvajiraphakdi, who was born in Nan Province.

The king granted Sineenat the title of empress, shortly after her coronation in 2019. She earlier in the year married a member of his personal bodyguard unit, who became Queen Suthida.

Student-led protests in recent years have seen some activists publicly criticize the king for his time spent abroad, among other things. At least 183 people have been charged with insulting the monarchy since the protests began in 2020.

The airline's CEO Woranate Laprabang responded to the online royalist anger, saying the staff in charge had been suspended pending an investigation.

"I want to apologize to the Thai people once again for such an incident," Woranate said.

However, lawyer and activist Srisuwan Janya on Monday filed a police complaint about royal insults and online crimes, saying in a post on Facebook the tweet "shows intent to offend" and an apology is not enough.

Srisuwan is well-known in Thailand as a prolific whistleblower with the police, once telling the Bangkok Post that he has counted more than 1,000 reports, including for consumer fraud, corruption and environmental concerns. Reuters was unable to determine how many of its complaints led to prosecution.

Police will consider the complaint by reviewing "all the facts" relating to what happened. "And, was there any criminal intent," Kissana Phathanacharoen, deputy spokeswoman for Thai police, told Reuters.

To note, Thailand's Lese Majeste Act has recently come under fire from some activists and opposition politicians, a bold move in a country that has traditionally held up the king as a demigod and has come under no criticism.