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Thailand Jails Dissident For What People Thought He Would Have Said
patiwat writes "A Thai court has convicted a man for censoring himself. In a 2010 anti-government rally, Yossawarit Chuklom said several people were against the dissolution of Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. He mentioned a few names, and then put his hand over his mouth and said he wasn't brave enough to continue. A court ruled that he would have mentioned King Bhumibol Adulyadej — thus earning him a conviction for insulting the King, who is constitutionally banned from any political role."
But Thailand is still where a huge chunk of consumer goods in the U.S. come from? How are the communists so much worse than monarchist totalitarians?
The injustice here is that he's being imprisoned for expressing an opinion that involves the King and his role in politics. That's rotten.
I suspect most people here will assume, instead, that the injustice is that he didn't name the King explicitly, but courts tend to make reasonable inferences that people using certain language and gestures intend to communicate a concept even if they don't state it explicitly in ${language}. Just as you couldn't say "One of my co-workers is a pedophile and it's not" ${list of everyone except the person you're refusing to name} without being at serious risk of being sued for libel, likewise it sounds like the dissident made gestures that would only be interpreted in one way by the crowd.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Glad to hear you've made the move to using only solid state drives or other non-hard drive storage in everything you buy. I still need a few hard drives until large capacity SSDs are affordable, so I'll have to be giving Thailand some of my business.
I can easily see this sort of thing happening in the US. Imagine a group of olive-skinned young men sitting in a cafeteria talking, in a purely hypothetical manor, about potential local terrorist targets and how they would go about hypothetically attacking them.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
My daughter used to tease my son when they were little calling him "monkey face". One day a monkey came on children's TV and my son turned round and said "mum, dad, can you tell her off ... I know what she's thinking".
Seems some people don't grow up
I haven't. That doesn't mean I can't try. At the least, I can minimize what I do buy that comes from Thailand.
But don't try to joke, suggest, or even imply the word "bomb" in an airport or a plane. Even mentioning a related joke on Twitter could give you troubles.
Yeah, original jokes like HURR DURR look at what parts of me he licks!11!
Shoot yourself.
steaming turd if he allows such crap to happen.
He doesn't "allow" it to happen, since he has no role in making or enforcing the laws. In the past, the king has spoken out against political abuse of lese-majesty laws.
One more country I'll never visit. One more country I will avoid when buying things.
I am sure the people persecuting this man will be glad to hear it, since they are part of the opposition to the current government. Your boycott makes as much sense as boycotting the USA because the a court makes a ruling that the Obama administration doesn't like. The government of Thailand is far from monolithic.
Thailand is actually a lovely country to visit - great beaches and diving, friendly people (just don't try to hire them to do work for you unless you understand their work ethic and speak their language), incredible culture, and some awesome things to see and do (visit the "tiger temple" where abandoned or orphaned tiger cubs are raised by humans; it's an incredible experience to go up and pet live tigers). There are also some... other... reasons to visit, ranging from "medical tourism" (dental, in particular, is high quality but orders of magnitude cheaper than in the US) to "sex tourism" (exactly what you think it is).
Their politics, on the other hand, are a complete flaming mess. Stay away from them (fortunately, this is easy; I was there for about five weeks and spent almost all of it out of the cities).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
On the other hand but you could approach the argument the other way. Does he actually have to utter the name in order to communicate something. i.e. if I said something like, I have a strong distaste for recent versions of Windows, especially Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and *censored* then it would be pretty clear what the item was that I was referring to.
I'm not saying that I agree with this sort of law, but I think the headline is rather sensationalist. From what I gather, from the perspective of the prosecution, it should be more like 'Thailand Jails Dissident for what the dissident communicated (non-verbally)'.
You are correct. It isn't the king that is the problem in this case (I'm not sure of any cases actually where the King was the problem). His people love him dearly, much more so than we in the United States care for our current (or any president).
In fact, the King has used what powers he has to pardon those who have been arrested for bad mouthing him. It seems his majesty is actually a quite reasonable person, and I'm sure there was good intentions on the part of the government when they made the law, however, the law enforcement on the other hand....
Please don't visit Thailand for sex tourism. It only perpetuates the tragedy of human trafficking, many young people are sold and enslaved for a short, disease-ridden, and trashy life, due to the wealth and privilege of those who think they can use people like objects. It is a haunting horrific thing that needs to stop. We humans should treat one another better.
http://www.beanleafpress.com
No, he can't. He has to do his own wheedling and backroom dealing to get the right people to back him, since he essentially has no power. I've seen a couple of these things happen a few years ago, and the day & hour he heard about them, he began speaking out against that law and what was being done 'in his name' but against his will.
Even though he has no official political power, he does know people, and the populace love him. That allows him to do things, but only after he's been able to build a sufficient backing so that the ones in control won't just ignore him and sweep it under the rug.
Remember, a king he may be, but it's a title that comes with no power.