UPDATE: See 2 updates below

BP has previously blogged about about the case of Chotisk who faced a lese majeste complaint for failing to stand up for the Royal Anthem and the extreme rhetoric by ASTV Manager – see here and here. Voranai in the Bangkok Post has a very good and accurate summary of a disturbing case:

Hate mail and threats are the least of her worries. Being shunned by society that has forced a young girl to become persona non grata should be considered cruel and unusual punishment She had to change her name. She was turned away from three universities despite passing the entrance exams. She’s hounded by the press and society. It has been more than three years, and the witch hunt continues.

She calls herself ”Joss Stick”, or in Thai karn toop.

Her real name and the name she changed to were revealed to the public by Manager Online, owned by Sondhi Limthongkul, leader of the yellow shirt People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

But her name will not be revealed in this space.

BP: You really need to read it to believe it. Matichon has a partial video interview with Karn toop (they don’t show her face) and there is a transcript too. [UPDATE: Kaewmala has translated the full interview so read that instead of BP's hasty paraphrasing. Andrew wrote about this case last year.]

Matichon also has another interview and transcript of an interview with Thammsat University rector Somkid Lertpaitoon – Voranai’s piece quotes another interview – who gives the examples of Thirayuth Boonmee and others from October 6, 1976 incident who are now considered leading intellectuals in society. He further states that if a child has ability and is able to pass the entrance exam then they should study at Thammasat University. He states that the regulations of Thammasat require a guilty ruling with a jail sentence from the court for someone to be thrown out of university. Hence, he would not throw out Karn Toop until there was a final court judgment. A police complaint on its own would not be sufficient.*

Thammasat University Student Union have issued a statement condemning ASTV Manager for breaching Karn Toop’s privacy rights and for breaching media ethics and states that Karn Toop is someone with the right to study at Thammasat and sees no reason that she should not study there.

Thammasat University Professor Somsak J has some comments at New Mandala about the new legal case against her:

In mid 2011, i.e. at the start of this academic year, she passed the exam into the Faculty of Social Welfare, Thammasat University; although the administration knew of her case (Dr.Somkid, the university rector recently gave an interview about her case), she was more fortunate that here at Thammasat, they were more tolerant of differing opinion and accepted her without any incident. She already finished her first term as student her and is about to start the second term, postponed because of the flood until the middle of this month.

However, some royalists were not satisfied with just ruining her study for a year; unknown to [Karn Toop] some of them apparently lodged LM complain about her case with the police.

At the end of last October, an LM charged and a summon had been issued to [Karn Toop] by the Bang Khen Police precinct. But because of the flood (the police precinct itself was flooded, and [Karn Toop] herself was back in her home province of Ratchaburi), the date she was summoned to appear was re-scheduled twice, finally being set at 10 am., Wednesday 11 January.

During the past two months (from the time [Karn Toop] received her summon), I together with some academic friends have tried to made informal contact with people in the authorities, urging them to reconsider [Karn Toop]’s case. After all, there is really little merit in the charge and still less any benefits to social and political order, but to no avail. So, [Karn Toop] is now officially the latest victim in this LM madness.

Then in another comment, Somsak states:

Natthakarn has decided to asked the police for postponement of her reporting for LM charge, from next Wednesday to sometime next month. The police agreed. The new date is tentatively set at 11 February.

The reason is that she has upcoming final exams for last semester (held up from October because of flood) within a few days after next Wednesday. At first she thought she could manage the preparation for both the exam and the reporting to police within few days of one another; but apparently the latter interfered too much with her time and concentration for the exam preparation.

[UPDATE: There are differences between legal systems, but after a discussion on twitter and e-mail with a few people, BP thinks it wise to point out that "charged" used Somsak is not the correct term. Usually, "charged" indicates an indictment and hence Somsak's use of it could create confusion. From what BP has read, she has been summoned for questioning during the inquiry state (per Section 7 of Criminal Procedure Code) in regards to a possible LM charge, but she has not been charged. The definitions section (Section 2) of the Code makes this clearer as it refers to

(2) “ACCUSED” denotes a person who is alleged to have committed an offence, but not yet charged in court.

(Table of contents)

(3) “DEFENDANT” denotes a person who is charged in court with the commission of offence.

BP: Part of the problem is that the Thai word กล่าวหา can be translated as "charge" or "accuse" so it makes this messy. Based on the Matichon article below quoting the police and from what else BP has read, she is a "ผู้ต้องหา" (accused) and not a "จำเลย" (defendant) so hence she has not been charged]

Matichon quote a police source as stating the investigators decided not to proceed with the case as there as not sufficient evidence, but were overruled by Metropolitan Police Bureau Division 2 who wanted the Police to summons Karn Toop for questioning so hence the investigators have complied.

BP: A case of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s to complete the investigation or will it not end?

*He also criticizes the judiciary over their interpretation of Section 112 and their failure to look at “intention”.