Thailand: Man jailed for 50 years for defaming monarchy | Hacker News Reader

Thailand: Man jailed for 50 years for defaming monarchy

bbc.com

48 pointsclouddrover25 comments

It always blows my mind when the people who most complain about other countries for restricting freedoms (not that they shouldn't complain--they should) always give Thailand a free pass and praise it thoroughly.

Of all the places I've been in Asia, Thailand was the scariest. Police are more than happy to screw over people, especially foreigners. Other countries give small slaps on the wrist or just kick you out if you're a foreigner. Thailand is a country that literally arrests people for posting negative hotel reviews. Aside from North Korea and Myanmar, no other place in the eastern half of Asia comes down so hard for minor stuff (and that includes the big totalitarian neighbor to the north).

I always advise people to avoid the country entirely. Not worth the risk.

Thailand is also one of the most visited countries in the world, and 99.9% of tourists never run into any problems. In fact, I’d argue it’s one of the safest countries in the world for tourists. Personally, I always advise people to choose Thailand if they are looking for travel to a place that ticks most boxes relevant for a vacation. Just don’t insult the monarchy or sunbath in a temple while you are there. Neither should be that hard.

>Personally, I always advise people to choose Thailand if they are looking for travel to a place that ticks most boxes relevant for a vacation.

Personally, I always advise people to refuse to give their money to states that imprison people for insulting public officials.

just a minor point here. The monarch/s aren't really public officials since that implies employment by the state. They sit above the state but within it.

The structure of governments is generally an imitation of monarchs ie, presidents think themselves minor kings rather than public servants - see armed guards and minion ministers, grand abodes etc .. however short lived.

Just a minor point here: there are a lot of "states that imprison people for insulting public officials". Some of them in western Europe.

I have lived there for many years; had a business, lived in various areas, North to South, and studied Thai there. Though this is anecdotal I have experience with Thais and Farang there. One thing that is glaringly missing from your remarks is the extreme tolerance of Thai people. Yes it is a military dictatorship and there is massive corruption throughout it's public systems but one hardly feels there effect in day to day life. Face and keeping the staus quo are of upmost importance. If there is trouble and people are arrested it is usually because they have majorly screwed up, upset the wrong person or failed to bribe there way out. Bribes are fines in effect or ways to ease the passage of "problems" You can easily make reference to laws and rules in other countries that have equally bad problems.

That's harsh.

In my personal experience over years Thai policemen usualy politely refuse bribes (handing back my 1000 baht bill) and still giving me a pass.

Also (and I have seen this many times) on one of these rural police checkpoints when idle Thai policemen usualy swipe the road with brush. Just to keep busy. I have never seen a policemen swiping the road or doing something useful in any other country in the world.

As for monarchy there were massive student protests that focused also on monarchy and kings enormous wealth. This is indeed very sensisitive but also political and generational issue in Thailand.

I have also seen thousands of situations where farangs had been behaving terrible (for various reasons) and Thai people taking that very patiently.

Wow, that's such a long time. Different places have different rules, etc, and I don't want to criticise how Thailand functions, but this seems so excessive.

A young person has just lost their life over a Facebook post. It's dystopian as hell, and scary. It's stuff like this which makes me so happy I deleted Facebook. You never know when your 'footprint' might be used against you.

People visit Thai on the sunny side. Things like drugs, flesh trafficking, sex mutilation, organ trafficking, bribery and corruption, STD, they dont want to talk about. It is quite lawless there as long as you have money and don't got involved with the authority. I would rank them still at medieval time set in modern era. Most of the people still at village naive-like state especially outside of Bangkok. Anyway...that's what they have. It is none of our business as long as we are not affected directly. Let's all delude ourself and just see the sunny side of it.

> I would rank them still at medieval time set in modern era. Most of the people still at village naive-like state especially outside of Bangkok

This description applies also to a lot of places in EU. It is better not to.generalise.

> It is quite lawless there as long as you have money and don't got involved with the authority. I would rank them still at medieval time set in modern era.

Kinda sounds like Russia but with much better weather.

They've jailed people in Spain for similar things in recent years too.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN2AF1H9/

For 9 months, or an extra year if the associated fine was not paid

Interesting that free speech prohibitions regarding the Spain monarchy has just led to nobody mentioning the Spanish monarchy, in my world anyway

>Interesting that free speech prohibitions regarding the Spain monarchy has just led to nobody mentioning the Spanish monarchy, in my world anyway

If I were receiving a stupendous public stipend for doing nothing, people not talking about me ever would be an amazing added bonus.

No, that's not similar at all, and it says that right in the 1st paragraph "Spanish rapper sentenced to jail time on charges including insulting the monarchy and praising terrorist groups".

You are comparing a case where someone was sentenced to 50 years for speaking against monarchy, with a case where someone was condemned to 9 months for insulting monarchy AND praising terrorist groups.

They are liberal on many things, but not Buddha and the Monarchy. Can't make fun of them or defame them. Better to just smile.

It is illegal to make fun of the King of Burma, or to make fun of the Buddha, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You find that SE Asian countries aren't as free as the USA, EU, Canada, etc. At least for free speech. When asked about their opinion on the Monarchy the Thai people just smile and say nothing.

>Thirty-year-old Mongkol Thirakot was originally sentenced to 28 years for posts he made three years ago on Facebook.

>But on Thursday an appeals court added an extra 22 years to the sentence

>the judge said he had already reduced Mr Thirakot's sentence by a third because of the defendant's co-operative behaviour

There was a play about this: https://youtu.be/Sn-TdC5gctk?feature=shared

My trip to Thailand was memorable for 3 reasons:

1/ They spent a lot of money to build Buddhist temples and grand structures. They are obsessed with it and believe it is a form of saving karma for the next life. It reminds me of the Pharaohs.

2/ They royals are literally gods and beyond reproach. We got a Thai native assigned to our group just to make sure we would not misbehave or something and our guide told us one of the most severe crimes that no one can bail us out from would be lese majeste. Stuff like don't point at the king picture and laugh or step on anything with his picture, including the money.

3/ Plenty of tourist traps, ranging from honey farms to homeopathic "institute". And lots of good street food.

My trip to Germany was memorable for two reasons:

1/ The King of Thailand rents/bought(?) a hotel in the southern alpine part of Germany and spends a lot of time there [1]

2/ This caused some consternation in Germany because foreign heads of state are not to conduct business from Germany [2] and they had to figure out how to handle the king spending so much time there.

The whole thing is kinda fascinating really.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-luxury-hotel-thailand...

[2] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dw.com/en/thai-king-maha-va...

>Stuff like don't point at the king picture and laugh or step on anything with his picture, including the money.

This seems odd to me that they'd put his face on there at all if it causes this problem. For contrast, before the euro, Ireland's coins were going to have saints in the designs but were changed to stylized animals when it was realized they'd be used to gamble.

Flashback to the royal video played in Thai cinemas before the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-DF-gDqDBM

I lived in Bangkok back in 2007. Being made to stand at the movie theater made me feel like I was at church lol.

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