US Citizen Facing 15 Years In Jail For Linking From His Blog To An Unauthorized Bio Of Thai King
from the goodbye-tourism dept
I'm curious if Thailand is purposely trying to kill off its rather lucrative tourism business. We've discussed in the past that Thailand has strict laws against "insulting" the king. These lèse majesté laws are used widely in Thailand to stop any sort of political criticism. They've been used to block entire sites including YouTube, and to arrest website owners for the comments on their site.Lately, Thailand has been trying to use those laws against US citizens. Last month, we wrote about the case of Anthony Chai, a US citizen who had posted some anonymous comments critical of the king. In that case, the Canadian/US firm that hosted the site handed Chai's identity over to the Thai government without question, and Chai was arrested recently while visiting.
In a similar case, US citizen Joe Gordon had posted a link on his blog to an unauthorized bio of the king... and was then arrested when visiting Thailand, the news has come out that after months of denying the charges, Gordon has decided he can't take it any more and has agreed to plead guilty.
"I do not want to fight this case. I plead guilty to all the accusations," he told judges.At this point, I'm not sure why any US citizen would ever agree to visit Thailand again. If you merely link to an unauthorized bio of the king, you could end up in jail. Furthermore, I'm curious as to what the Thai leadership thinks it's accomplishing with these actions. Honestly, without these cases, I'd never even know about the Thai king at all. It seems like each of these actions only brings greater negative attention on the king than if he'd just ignored such things.
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Filed Under: anthony chai, free speech, joe gordeon, lese majeste, thailand
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OOh, free trip!
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OOh, free trip!
The King Bhumibol Adulyadej is a fink!
(Well, let's see how this goes...)
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Re: OOh, free trip!
You just got Mike put on Thailand's most wanted list.
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In countries with French and Spanish legal traditions, it's not unusual (particularly in the formerly French ones) for the jailer to NOT provide any food to the prisoners. Feeding prisoners is actually more of a British thing.
Being thrown into a third world jail sucks. Being expected to pay for your own meals in there or starve sucks a lot more.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: OOh, free trip!
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Re: OOh, free trip!
Now any AC can get arrested in Thailand, on suspicion that they're the notorious AC. This would certainly justify an IP fishing expedition to locate the perpetrators.
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Re: Re: OOh, free trip!
Nobody expects the Thai inquisition!
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Re: OOh, free trip!
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Re: OOh, free trip!
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And ours mean jack f**king squat.
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Barbara Streisand is the King of Thailand?
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yes, if we're on the kindergarten playground it might be a good argument, but in the real world of adults I can call you a moron and there's no way i am going to jail for 15 years. I call the king of Thailand a moron and oops, if i visit Thailand i can go to jail for 15 years. Yeah your right, his feelings are so important.
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Re: Think Moron, Think!
If you think King Rama of Siam ( Thailand) is a "moron", than why bother visiting Thailand? Oops. looks like you are a bigger moron than him!
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Seems fair.
Time for the U.S to extradite all of Hollywood to be hanged and stoned in Iran for being sinful
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Re: Seems fair.
So, um, yay?
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Or vice-versa for that matter.
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Not just Thailand
Two words: Dmitry Sklyarov.
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Re: Not just Thailand
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For the chicks
Cheers!
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Re: For the chicks
Tell me: are you one of those people?
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Re: Re: For the chicks
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Re: Re: Re: For the chicks
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Re: For the chicks
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Re: For the chicks
Evangelical Conservative American/ Aussie/ Western missionaries!
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And by the way your King is a schmuck who like to stick fish up his butt for sexual fun.
Now come to Portland, ME and try to arrest me.
USA Boycott and Do Not Visit Thailand
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Do the Thai people really want to keep reliving the dark ages like this?
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You can't have it both ways - the internet crosses all borders, which means your content is published in all of those areas too.
Suck it up.
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In the same manner that the internet doesn't stop at the border, the liability doesn't either.
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For posting this you should go IMMEDIATELY to china and hand yourself in to the local authorities who frown deeply on anonymous commenters......
Whilst your at it, don't forget to tell them your tissue type just in case you're an organ match for a party member.....
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Imagine that...
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Re: Imagine that...
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OH and a lot of stuff that begins with ftp:// as well
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Re: Imagine that...
Good god, I'd better hope they don't have laws against jaywalking.
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Royal Thai Embassy
1024 Wisconsin Ave.
N.W. Washington D.C. 20007
Tel. (202) 944-3600
Fax. (202) 944-3611
State Department Thailand page should have travel warning for this.
Thailand prime destination for child sex tourism.
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Maybe there is an advantage in suppressing local dissent, to a certain degree.
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;-)
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Coward
He's afraid of bloggers, terrified of journalists, and probably shits his pants if a toddler glares at him the wrong way.
Now, if he challenges people to DUEL with shotguns if they insult him......................
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Re: Coward
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Gee, looks like I won't ever be being visiting Thailand. Not that I'd want to, it being run by a massive douche and all...
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what Thai leadership is thinking?
Mostly, I think the current PM is thinking "How do I clear my brothers name so he doesn't get arrested when he enters the country?" Far more important things on their mind than tourism income right now. I doubt they have noticed this issue at all.
For those who don't know, the current prime minister in Thailand is the sister of a former PM who was removed by the military and subsequently found guilty of multiple counts of electoral fraud and abuse of position. He fled the country just before a ruling was handed down and has not come back since. His family and lackeys still own a good portion of the country and have bought their way into power twice now (removed once by way of convicting a bunch more people of electoral fraud, second time round they have not been found out yet: getting sneakier it seems.)
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So then when American business people start getting jailed in foreign soil and they can't complaint because the US has done it too this would be a boom for lawyers all over the world.
Imagine enacting laws that increase your jail time if you don't pay the fine for it in the country, any local business men will be looking at the internet to find out what other executives did wrong so they can be jailed if they ever set foot in their countries.
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Was this the link?
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_King_Never_Smiles
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Re: Was this the link?
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The King of Thailand is a god
He's the supreme being there. People worship him literally-so don't confuse them with reality or your bad attitude.
As to whether or not he knows about this? Who do you think made it a law? The Tooth Fairy?
They like their power, and that's why this happens.
I'm also not planning to visit Thailand any time soon. Hell, I can't even get out of this rotten state!
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Thailand
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Lese Majeste
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lese-majesty#Thailand
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I remember a case several years ago, where a young Swiss citizen was arrested in Thailand after getting drunk and deciding it would be fun to spray-paint insults to the king on a wall.
The king intervened to have the guy sent back to Switzerland and said in a statement that he didn't want to see this man go to prison because he isn't a tyrant.
Apparently it's one of those laws that the king doesn't approve of but doesn't have the authority or influence to strike down himself. Or maybe the king approves of the law and only intervened in the case of the Swiss guy because he felt a diplomatic incident would be bad for his country.
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Comment on arrested American in Thailand
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King Bhumibol Adulyade
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