My guess is a certain royal is behind all this. If you can’t stop foreign internet websites from showing scandalous material, hit back by locking up an easy target,
the ‘disrespectful farang.’
The scary thing to contemplate is how the ‘lese majeste’ law may be used in the future!
“Is he a stupid?” Well I’ll let others here decide the implications of your statement.
Taking what I think you meant by that question, isn’t it far less intelligent to blindly follow an outdated, draconian ruling than to question the same? I take the point IF you are aware of local laws that can imprison you it may be unwise to go against them but by all accounts Nicolaides was completely unaware of this law and that an arrest warrant had been issued when he was taken at Bangkok International airport.
Surely what is happening here at the most fundamental level is a statement from the Thai royalty and government that you have no right to free speech, whether your a foreigner or thai national.
Without that basic right you and I would not be stating our opinions on this website!
Have some compassion for a human being who I am sure IS going through an ordeal in prison. The very experience and its conditions surely dictates that.
Bruno & Ms Ada Bsiz you are both vigourously defending (presumably) your countries law but fail. How can a fictitious character in a novel be interpreted as a reference to the Thai royalty? unless there is another agenda? perhaps a Thai teacher wanting Harry’s job? who knows whats behind this but it certainly appears to be something else other than a real insult to the Thai royalty. It’s hard to respect such a law when it can be interpreted in any way the court officers decide. the written word especially english is open to interpretation – hell there are people that make a living interpreting other peoples work. Shakespeare is continually being interpreted.
Have you read the “offending” novel? I understand that it’s a novel that sold only a few copies – this action will ensure that the novel is now read much more widely. It is already circulating on the web.
Tony: I did include the words as presented by various news sources, but NM edited them out; not sure why. They were published in the Sydney Morning Herald and in Greeknewsonline.com.
How can you respect a law that is clearly designed to censor public comment, can be abused and used to hide political agendas and then apparently can’t be reported on for fear of attracting a similar charge. it is a law indicative of an opressive regime that fears truth
I don’t understand why someone working or visiting another country be stupid enough to smuggle drugs or critisize the government or break laws ?
Nicolaides worked several years as an “English” teacher in Thailand (having presumably not found suitable employment in Australia). So he is not just a tourist or a bag-packer passing through.
But hey ! Write a book critisizing a “fictitious” Prince and King … that would definitely guarantee notoriety.
And I suppose, after his release, he will write the inevitable book about his Thai “ordeal” and hard life in prison …
Do you remember fellow who put grafitti in one ot the SE Country ? Malasia if I am not mistaken!
As a result he got 20 or 40 lashes. prescribed by local judge! All western press started to make big noise about non democratic aproach to our graffiti man. After he was relised from prison he came back to US and did the same to US cars or walls. This time nothging happened to him. Reason?We are living in permissive society. I do what I feel like to do.
Same story with our hero Nicolaides. He was working as a teacher in Thailand, insulted Thai Dynasty and he is surprised when judge gave him 3 years along sentence?
Is he a stupid? I dont know ! But sometimes you should pay for you dids or to think twice. Muntadar al-Zaidi who was playing with his 2 boots during Bush Jr visit in Bagdad as a result had broken ribs .
So in my opinion Thai judge was too lenient toward Mr Nicalaides. If you are in Rome you do like Romans!
Agreed, aiontay, that’s just it, the very nature of uprisings. And talk about best laid plans. Still, any group working for change must prepare themselves with the finger on the pulse and seize the day. Unless the NLD changes tack, transforms itself and contemplates the hopelessness of being driven by events rather than planning ahead, come the fire next time, it will be swept aside and assigned to the dustbin of history.
Thanks to Totila and Moe Aung for making my points while I was away. To be honest Nick, I think you could institute regime change with less than 100 well supplied, well trained, and well armed men. Put them in the cities, use them against the regime’s oppression engine (USDA, Swan Arr Shin, and of course SPDC). Make it frightening for officers to follow orders thoroughly. Break up the chain of command a little bit. It should be relatively simple to do considering SPDC’s state of morale. When the mass uprising happens again, said men can also buy serious time for the revolution by sabotaging roads, holding off soldiers, etc. A good armed group can do much. Organizing these men isn’t a fairy tale, getting the money to do it might be.
It may be difficult getting the peaceful resistance to work with the violent resistance, only because the peaceful side is afraid of losing support from western governments. BTW, as someone who has sat in on NCGUB meetings, let me tell you, the peaceful resistance has NOTHING up their sleeve, and little in the way of motivation. We need to expand the front.
Regarding the nature of the enemy, they may be people individually, but in groups they cannot afford to have mercy. I don’t harbor hatred for the individual soldiers, MI, etc, but it doesn’t mean we should have pity until the job is done. I see plenty of room for them in the new society. However, they are standing in the way of the people’s freedom to life, liberty, and property. The people have not only a right, but a duty to fight them, according to John Locke at least.
Regarding foreign soldiers, I see their use in a training and morale role rather than as sheer numbers to fight with. I suppose I’m not concerned with negotiations, but then again, I think that the defensive jungle war is on its way out regardless. I think the urban war needs to be initiated while the jungle war is occurring. I think we have limited time to work with.
Mary, I agree with you that listening is important. I think it’s necessary to understand a conflict the best you can before getting involved at all. I don’t think this conflict is morally ambiguous by any means however. I think there are clearly defined “good guys” and “bad guys” in this situation. Again, I apologize if I’ve come across as hostile, I certainly hold no ill will towards you. I do believe you need a better understanding of the conflict before you lecture us though.
Nick, allow me to step back and apologize, es tut mir leid. Perhaps using the term appeasement is going too far. As Moe Aung says though, I think a well organized effort is more likely to happen than a “live and let live” approach from the junta. I certainly appreciate your sentiment that KNLA is not winning, and that it seems as though their resistance is both fruitless and pointless. I think, however, even if you successfully negotiated a peaceful ceasefire tomorrow, many people would be killed, imprisoned, raped, etc, and you’d only have a steeper hill to climb next time. I think a negotiated ceasefire would only result in less momentum, and less leverage for us.
Sometimes I must admit that I waffle on the point of sanctions. Sometimes I think that perhaps without the sanctions, we’d have more money to fight the junta, but in the end I always come back to how impressive the SPDC’s arsenal would be after the sanctions ended. We are pretty lucky in a lot of ways, their complete lack of airforce for example. Thank GOD we don’t have to deal with bombers and HIND helicopters as it is. I can only imagine if they had the money to purchase and maintain those things. I don’t know, it is as difficult to swallow the sanctions as it is to accept reality without them.
Anyways, my point is that we need to continue the struggle or lose momentum and leverage. If we go back to zero, we will have to start from scratch (although maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing, haha) All the struggle needs is money. With more money, KNLA would be in a much better position. With more money, we could start an insurgency against the generals. With more money I suppose we could do a lot of things, but I imagine I will have to keep dreaming. I’m enjoying the discussion with you all though, I must admit 🙂
I was alarmed by the seriousness of feelings of my fellow Australian friends who are sorry for Harry Nicholaides. I therefore wished to gather info in case I was able to help in any way to make life easier for him. Again, after studying his logistics and the circumstances surrounding the case, I personally feel I might not be able to do anything much. Harry taught at the Queen Mother’s University. He has lived here for more than 2-3 years and have been around many refined and educated Thais and fellow professors who would have given him ample insights into what needs to be treated with discretion and due respect in this country. If I were a professor at the Queen Mother’s University, I would have every reason to be grateful to this country and avoid posting any thing that seems sensitive towards the monarchy. If Verisimilitudes was a novel staging the scenes and settings in Thailand, it makes it hard to view that he’s not referring his saying therein to the Crown Prince directly or indirectly, for instances. I guess that’s why he has been denied bails and as such inevitably being imprisoned. I am not Harry so I guess it may not be good for me to say all this. For a neutral understanding, I wish to say that, lese majeste law is not some kind of laws that the government cleverly innovated for the purposes of bureaucracy to win the hearts of the Thais. It is based not only on respectful humanitarian ways but also on the logics that no one shall defame others in any clever or unclever fashions whatsoever especially without clear evidence as yet that would be considered uncivilised… or an older saying that one shall not dwell one’s life on spreading rumours because it is considered unwise. From my following up on heard rumours. And materials containing this sort of info or rumours, I can well tell you that wise people should have better things to do than participating in fabricating or spreading it. While it may seem like nonsense to many westerners, it serves like the Section of Criminal Code that governs cases re defamation among commoners even if in case of commoners the direct reference to the grounds of the case may seem to require a lot more material representation and evidence because of the differentiation of circumstances and setting as well as person’s broader specifics. I am sorry for everybody with bad feelings for that I might not be able to help. I feel bad for Harry’s hardship too but perhaps let’s look at it that every moment in life is like a coin that has got at least two sides. if so, I hope his life in the next three years would contain good things as well as hardship that he might have to go through. May peace be with him for the time-being.
Has there ever been a prepared, supported, timely uprising? The American Revolution, despite years of apparent preparation, was pretty messy and uncoordinated for years; the British came close to suppressing it more than once. The Communists didn’t start the revolution in Russia, and Sun Yat Sen wasn’t the one that lead the actually revolt that overthrew the Ching dynasty. Mao had to spend years in the literal wilderness. Aung San initially backed the wrong side, and was only able to succeed due to a timely switch. It would seem to me that vey few groups ever planned a successful uprising, but instead co-opted them.
I do think the NLD hasn’t done much to position itself to co-opt any uprising, in part because they haven’t done much reaching out to the ethnic minorities.
Very helpful, thanks. Just what I needed for the updated section on Burma that I am doing for the International Trade Union Confederation’s annual survey of violations of trade union rights. Once again, everything related to association and assembly is made contingent on laws on security that of course allow no consideration of the registration of a trade union. Burma’s workers continue to remain under the heel of one of the most repressive regimes in modern Asian history.
Here is how one Thai Embassy describes the policies of the new Democrat-led government: “Priorities of Thailand’s new government
… comprise: (1) to protect the Monarchy, (2) to foster national reconciliation, (3) to reinvigorate the economy, and (4) to further develop stable democracy and political system. PM has already reached out to win hearts and minds of the public especially in North and Northeast regions of Thailand.”
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Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
My guess is a certain royal is behind all this. If you can’t stop foreign internet websites from showing scandalous material, hit back by locking up an easy target,
the ‘disrespectful farang.’
The scary thing to contemplate is how the ‘lese majeste’ law may be used in the future!
Statement on Harry Nicolaides
“Is he a stupid?” Well I’ll let others here decide the implications of your statement.
Taking what I think you meant by that question, isn’t it far less intelligent to blindly follow an outdated, draconian ruling than to question the same? I take the point IF you are aware of local laws that can imprison you it may be unwise to go against them but by all accounts Nicolaides was completely unaware of this law and that an arrest warrant had been issued when he was taken at Bangkok International airport.
Surely what is happening here at the most fundamental level is a statement from the Thai royalty and government that you have no right to free speech, whether your a foreigner or thai national.
Without that basic right you and I would not be stating our opinions on this website!
Have some compassion for a human being who I am sure IS going through an ordeal in prison. The very experience and its conditions surely dictates that.
Statement on Harry Nicolaides
Bruno & Ms Ada Bsiz you are both vigourously defending (presumably) your countries law but fail. How can a fictitious character in a novel be interpreted as a reference to the Thai royalty? unless there is another agenda? perhaps a Thai teacher wanting Harry’s job? who knows whats behind this but it certainly appears to be something else other than a real insult to the Thai royalty. It’s hard to respect such a law when it can be interpreted in any way the court officers decide. the written word especially english is open to interpretation – hell there are people that make a living interpreting other peoples work. Shakespeare is continually being interpreted.
Have you read the “offending” novel? I understand that it’s a novel that sold only a few copies – this action will ensure that the novel is now read much more widely. It is already circulating on the web.
Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
Tony: I did include the words as presented by various news sources, but NM edited them out; not sure why. They were published in the Sydney Morning Herald and in Greeknewsonline.com.
Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
Please sign the petition for immediate release of Harry Nicolaides at http://www.harrynicolaides.com
Free Harry Nicolaides
Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
“Please respect ” Law” of other counties !!”
How can you respect a law that is clearly designed to censor public comment, can be abused and used to hide political agendas and then apparently can’t be reported on for fear of attracting a similar charge. it is a law indicative of an opressive regime that fears truth
Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
Dear Thai
Please respect Universal Human rights as expressed in the United Cations Charter Declaration on Human Rights.
Your pitiful laws will make Thailand go backwards in History.Your Upper Echelons of Society will lose much money ans prestige in the world.
It is such a shame your country cannot elect any leaders with a true modern vision for Thailand.
My wife is Thai and has seen with her own eyes the bad things about Thailand. She is embarrassed that her people Will no wake up and make changes.
Update on Harry Nicolaides
‘Harry should ask for a Royal pardon, The King of Thailand is known for his kindness in these matters’
Why should he have to ask for a Royal pardon?
Does that ‘kindness’ only come after submission & begging?
The red army at the gates of parliament
‘I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry’
I couldn’t put it any better.
Dr Connors, and Japan, please accept my apologies and for (inadvertently) starting this nonsense.
Statement on Harry Nicolaides
I don’t understand why someone working or visiting another country be stupid enough to smuggle drugs or critisize the government or break laws ?
Nicolaides worked several years as an “English” teacher in Thailand (having presumably not found suitable employment in Australia). So he is not just a tourist or a bag-packer passing through.
But hey ! Write a book critisizing a “fictitious” Prince and King … that would definitely guarantee notoriety.
And I suppose, after his release, he will write the inevitable book about his Thai “ordeal” and hard life in prison …
Volunteering to fight in Burma
This is the only translated article about situation rite now, the others about “challenging” are in burmese.
http://burmadigest.info/2009/01/18/political-criticism-in-good-faith-on-ncub/
Statement on Harry Nicolaides
Do you remember fellow who put grafitti in one ot the SE Country ? Malasia if I am not mistaken!
As a result he got 20 or 40 lashes. prescribed by local judge! All western press started to make big noise about non democratic aproach to our graffiti man. After he was relised from prison he came back to US and did the same to US cars or walls. This time nothging happened to him. Reason?We are living in permissive society. I do what I feel like to do.
Same story with our hero Nicolaides. He was working as a teacher in Thailand, insulted Thai Dynasty and he is surprised when judge gave him 3 years along sentence?
Is he a stupid? I dont know ! But sometimes you should pay for you dids or to think twice. Muntadar al-Zaidi who was playing with his 2 boots during Bush Jr visit in Bagdad as a result had broken ribs .
So in my opinion Thai judge was too lenient toward Mr Nicalaides. If you are in Rome you do like Romans!
Volunteering to fight in Burma
Agreed, aiontay, that’s just it, the very nature of uprisings. And talk about best laid plans. Still, any group working for change must prepare themselves with the finger on the pulse and seize the day. Unless the NLD changes tack, transforms itself and contemplates the hopelessness of being driven by events rather than planning ahead, come the fire next time, it will be swept aside and assigned to the dustbin of history.
Volunteering to fight in Burma
Thanks to Totila and Moe Aung for making my points while I was away. To be honest Nick, I think you could institute regime change with less than 100 well supplied, well trained, and well armed men. Put them in the cities, use them against the regime’s oppression engine (USDA, Swan Arr Shin, and of course SPDC). Make it frightening for officers to follow orders thoroughly. Break up the chain of command a little bit. It should be relatively simple to do considering SPDC’s state of morale. When the mass uprising happens again, said men can also buy serious time for the revolution by sabotaging roads, holding off soldiers, etc. A good armed group can do much. Organizing these men isn’t a fairy tale, getting the money to do it might be.
It may be difficult getting the peaceful resistance to work with the violent resistance, only because the peaceful side is afraid of losing support from western governments. BTW, as someone who has sat in on NCGUB meetings, let me tell you, the peaceful resistance has NOTHING up their sleeve, and little in the way of motivation. We need to expand the front.
Regarding the nature of the enemy, they may be people individually, but in groups they cannot afford to have mercy. I don’t harbor hatred for the individual soldiers, MI, etc, but it doesn’t mean we should have pity until the job is done. I see plenty of room for them in the new society. However, they are standing in the way of the people’s freedom to life, liberty, and property. The people have not only a right, but a duty to fight them, according to John Locke at least.
Regarding foreign soldiers, I see their use in a training and morale role rather than as sheer numbers to fight with. I suppose I’m not concerned with negotiations, but then again, I think that the defensive jungle war is on its way out regardless. I think the urban war needs to be initiated while the jungle war is occurring. I think we have limited time to work with.
Mary, I agree with you that listening is important. I think it’s necessary to understand a conflict the best you can before getting involved at all. I don’t think this conflict is morally ambiguous by any means however. I think there are clearly defined “good guys” and “bad guys” in this situation. Again, I apologize if I’ve come across as hostile, I certainly hold no ill will towards you. I do believe you need a better understanding of the conflict before you lecture us though.
Nick, allow me to step back and apologize, es tut mir leid. Perhaps using the term appeasement is going too far. As Moe Aung says though, I think a well organized effort is more likely to happen than a “live and let live” approach from the junta. I certainly appreciate your sentiment that KNLA is not winning, and that it seems as though their resistance is both fruitless and pointless. I think, however, even if you successfully negotiated a peaceful ceasefire tomorrow, many people would be killed, imprisoned, raped, etc, and you’d only have a steeper hill to climb next time. I think a negotiated ceasefire would only result in less momentum, and less leverage for us.
Sometimes I must admit that I waffle on the point of sanctions. Sometimes I think that perhaps without the sanctions, we’d have more money to fight the junta, but in the end I always come back to how impressive the SPDC’s arsenal would be after the sanctions ended. We are pretty lucky in a lot of ways, their complete lack of airforce for example. Thank GOD we don’t have to deal with bombers and HIND helicopters as it is. I can only imagine if they had the money to purchase and maintain those things. I don’t know, it is as difficult to swallow the sanctions as it is to accept reality without them.
Anyways, my point is that we need to continue the struggle or lose momentum and leverage. If we go back to zero, we will have to start from scratch (although maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing, haha) All the struggle needs is money. With more money, KNLA would be in a much better position. With more money, we could start an insurgency against the generals. With more money I suppose we could do a lot of things, but I imagine I will have to keep dreaming. I’m enjoying the discussion with you all though, I must admit 🙂
Lèse majesté and Harry Nicolaides
Please respect ” Law” of other counties !!
Update on Harry Nicolaides
I was alarmed by the seriousness of feelings of my fellow Australian friends who are sorry for Harry Nicholaides. I therefore wished to gather info in case I was able to help in any way to make life easier for him. Again, after studying his logistics and the circumstances surrounding the case, I personally feel I might not be able to do anything much. Harry taught at the Queen Mother’s University. He has lived here for more than 2-3 years and have been around many refined and educated Thais and fellow professors who would have given him ample insights into what needs to be treated with discretion and due respect in this country. If I were a professor at the Queen Mother’s University, I would have every reason to be grateful to this country and avoid posting any thing that seems sensitive towards the monarchy. If Verisimilitudes was a novel staging the scenes and settings in Thailand, it makes it hard to view that he’s not referring his saying therein to the Crown Prince directly or indirectly, for instances. I guess that’s why he has been denied bails and as such inevitably being imprisoned. I am not Harry so I guess it may not be good for me to say all this. For a neutral understanding, I wish to say that, lese majeste law is not some kind of laws that the government cleverly innovated for the purposes of bureaucracy to win the hearts of the Thais. It is based not only on respectful humanitarian ways but also on the logics that no one shall defame others in any clever or unclever fashions whatsoever especially without clear evidence as yet that would be considered uncivilised… or an older saying that one shall not dwell one’s life on spreading rumours because it is considered unwise. From my following up on heard rumours. And materials containing this sort of info or rumours, I can well tell you that wise people should have better things to do than participating in fabricating or spreading it. While it may seem like nonsense to many westerners, it serves like the Section of Criminal Code that governs cases re defamation among commoners even if in case of commoners the direct reference to the grounds of the case may seem to require a lot more material representation and evidence because of the differentiation of circumstances and setting as well as person’s broader specifics. I am sorry for everybody with bad feelings for that I might not be able to help. I feel bad for Harry’s hardship too but perhaps let’s look at it that every moment in life is like a coin that has got at least two sides. if so, I hope his life in the next three years would contain good things as well as hardship that he might have to go through. May peace be with him for the time-being.
Volunteering to fight in Burma
Has there ever been a prepared, supported, timely uprising? The American Revolution, despite years of apparent preparation, was pretty messy and uncoordinated for years; the British came close to suppressing it more than once. The Communists didn’t start the revolution in Russia, and Sun Yat Sen wasn’t the one that lead the actually revolt that overthrew the Ching dynasty. Mao had to spend years in the literal wilderness. Aung San initially backed the wrong side, and was only able to succeed due to a timely switch. It would seem to me that vey few groups ever planned a successful uprising, but instead co-opted them.
I do think the NLD hasn’t done much to position itself to co-opt any uprising, in part because they haven’t done much reaching out to the ethnic minorities.
Burma’s 2008 Constitution in translation
Very helpful, thanks. Just what I needed for the updated section on Burma that I am doing for the International Trade Union Confederation’s annual survey of violations of trade union rights. Once again, everything related to association and assembly is made contingent on laws on security that of course allow no consideration of the registration of a trade union. Burma’s workers continue to remain under the heel of one of the most repressive regimes in modern Asian history.
The red army at the gates of parliament
A-hem….
When I read Susie’s post…. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry
either way tears are coming out of my eyes….
Defending the taboo – the royal response
Here is how one Thai Embassy describes the policies of the new Democrat-led government: “Priorities of Thailand’s new government
… comprise: (1) to protect the Monarchy, (2) to foster national reconciliation, (3) to reinvigorate the economy, and (4) to further develop stable democracy and political system. PM has already reached out to win hearts and minds of the public especially in North and Northeast regions of Thailand.”