Thailand's Supreme Court has upheld the 2012 conviction of a webmaster for not acting quickly enough to delete online comments deemed insulting to the country's monarchy.
The court on Wednesday affirmed the eight-month prison term - suspended for a year - and 20,000 baht ($555) fine given Chiranuch Premchaiporn, a director of the news website Prachatai, where the offending comments were posted by outside parties.
The human rights group Amnesty International called the court's decision an appalling precedent for freedom of expression.
Chiranuch had faced up to 20 years in prison under Thailand's broadly defined Computer Crime Act for failing to quickly remove 10 reader comments posted on the web board. She was convicted over one comment that remained online for 20 days.
