Summary
Thai police arrested US academic Paul Chambers on charges of insulting the monarchy and violating computer crime laws, linked to remarks made during an online seminar.
Chambers, a political science professor at Naresuan University, was summoned after a complaint by the Thai Army.
He denied the charges and was denied bail, with no trial date set. Thailand enforces strict lèse-majesté laws under Article 112, carrying up to 15 years in prison.
Am in Thailand rn. He was doing research on thai police and clearly got in trouble over that. The dispute is literally him answering 1 question “whether king has more power than PM” and he said “yes” - at least that’s what we currently think is happening.
Either way thai police is been through a lot of shit rn with latest being basically thai version of Epstein killing himself in a cell and in general thai police is struggling to keep corruption hidden with such dataflow and displeasement wirh current leadership.
I’m not thai but that’s what I hear from my thai friends here.
Good thing nothing like that could happen in the good ol US of A
Downvoters don’t understand irony.
Lol I know, right?
They are literally cancelling student visas with no notice and then arresting the students
The only thing I can figure is they want to push a court case to establish precedent of no due process for ICE cases. That will open the door for imprisonment without trial, which then leads to “legal” slavery. Rent the prisoners to the farmers that used migrant labor, farmers pay what they did before, private prisons make money and get federal dollars per head, and the prisoners get more prison and work until they’re not useful, then deported
Remember when people were press-ganged into naval service? That, but no pirates
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Thailand’s lèse majesté laws are very strict. The government treats insults to the monarchy as a harm to the entire country.
Just don’t do it! If you’re not a Thai person then what business do you have with the monarchy anyway?
If you’re not a Thai person then what business do you have with the monarchy anyway?
Thats a dumb line. You should be able to criticize anyone, especially those in power
It seems like every 10 years or so a story like this comes up.
I remember in the 90s there was a case of a teenager who vandalized or put graffiti on a building in some place like Singapore and was sentenced to caning. There was this huge outcry about how cruel it was and such, and I remember (I was in high school) thinking that the guy was an idiot who made how own bed.
Then you get Otto Warmbier who somehow was allowed into North Korea and then decided it was a good idea to rip a post of the country’s founder off the wall.
The lesson? Know where you are. When you’re not in Kansas, then don’t do Kansas things. Consequences are different in different parts of the world. It’s really easy to be a respectful traveler.
Yeah. Sometimes I think people are so used to media (TV, movies, video games) and the distancing effect of being in a vehicle (looking out a window at people) that they’re actually capable of travelling to another country without actually believing that they are there in person.
Apart from stories like this, there are countless other stories of clueless travellers who walk around treating locals like NPCs, not really realizing how annoying and offensive they are. These big blowback stories are just the tip of the iceberg on that whole genre of stupidity.
Americans get really upset when people go to the US and do things like they do in their home country, but also expect to be able to act like Americans in other countries. It’s a little arrogant or ignorant. Some people who who were even invited to study in the US have been deported for doing things that Americans do themselves, like protesting.
Whittle this story down to its core and you have, “guest in country breaks law and gets punished”. Is that really surprising? How about, “guest in country exercises rights of citizens and gets punished?”
The thumbnail reminded me of that legendary Kimchi slap scene.
