Lèse Majesté

Journalism is sometimes a hard and thankless job, and sometimes journalists are even willing to go to jail in order to ensure the journalistic ethic of protecting the identity of a source. Nevertheless, when a journalist decides to stick by their guns and go to jail for this, it is their choice to do so. So imagine you are a journalist or blogger that is going to jail, not for what you wrote, but for something, someone else wrote. That is the fate of many journalists, bloggers, and even Facebook users in the Kingdom of Thailand.

Thailand has a much-revered King is so loved that laws are in place to protect his image from even the slightest of disparaging comments. These are called laws of lese majeste, the term derives from the France, and means “injured majesty”.

 Now as any seasoned visitor to Thailand knows, it is always a good practice not to talk about the Thai royal family at all for fear that even a nice comment you make about the royals will be interpreted as negative.

These laws are the reason why if you visit any blog, newspaper website, or even a Facebook account based out of Thailand, the comments sections below the posts are disabled. They do this because these laws are so strict, that even if somebody else makes a comment on your blog that disparages the Thai royals, you are held responsible as the blogs owner, and you will go to jail. That is even if you deleted the comment to moment you first saw it.

           

 I plan on living in Thailand in the future, but I’m not sure if I will even bother to operate a blog when I am there…too risky.