Freedom of speech and Lese Majeste law in Thailand. One of the harshest laws in the world. It is also to be noted that not only the law is fundamentally anti-freedom-of-speech, its application in recent years has also proved to be worse. One of the craziest applications is that it is extended to cover all kings of the past (yeah the dead ones). Lèse-majesté complaints are a common way of harassing political rivals. A surge of new cases followed last Mays military coup. Anyone can report an offence, and it is not only speech that breaks the rules. In 2011 a 61-year-old received a 20-year sentence for sending four offensive text messages; he denied the charges and died in prison the following year. People who fail to stand for the royal anthem, still played before most film screenings, or deface banknotes, which bear the Kings image, have fallen foul of the law. In December complaints of lèse-majesté were made against a woman who wore black clothes on the eve of the Kings birthday. In 2008 a series of charges against the BBC included the complaint that its website had allowed the Kings image to appear below that of a politician. Foreigners who break the lèse-majesté law are often swiftly deported, but in recent years more of them have served jail terms. In 2007 Oliver Jufer, a Swiss national, received a ten-year sentence for defacing pictures of the King while drunk (he was pardoned after a month). Shortly afterwards an Australian, Harry Nicolaides, spent more than a year behind bars because one paragraph in a self-published novel contained an unflattering description of the crown prince. In 2012 Joe Gordon, a Thai American, spent seven months in prison for translating excerpts of The King Never Smiles, an English-language biography of the King that is banned in Thailand.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:19:33 +0000
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