Lèse-Majesté in Thailand
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
[1] https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/lese-majeste-continues-in-tha... [2] https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/a-victim-of-thailands-lese-ma...
So if you read this with surprise or disgust - consider what ideas, events or people your own democratic state considers illegal to "defame, insult, or threaten", and then consider that many in Thailand may feel as strongly about their monarchy as you do about that.
You may still be disgusted - as you value your thing more highly - but hopefully you will be less surprised about the world.
For Americans at least, such a concept thankfully doesn't exist. Threats can be a crime under certain circumstances, but being a specific individual doesn't really make it worse and they're only a crime when it's something fairly tangible. You can say you hate the president and you're going to kick his ass. Lots of people say this daily. Secret Service only shows up when you threaten to kill him because there are plenty of people who actually make efforts to do it--and even then, you could probably be an idiot and jokingly post it without any problem so long as it doesn't seem like a tangible threat. Other police will stop by if you threaten to do the same to non-political individuals for the same reasons.
Whatever it is, being banned from an airplane is better than being arrested and serving several years for liking a facebook post saying "king dum thums up if u agree" as actually happens in Thailand.
... actually, does anyone have a pointer to English-language material on polling/survey data about how Thai people feel about these laws?
I imagine Thailand - just like the UK, Germany, etc - charges them with breaking a specific law, and the general public thinks nothing of it.
I'm pointing out that it's not a completely foreign concept, and easy to understand if you slot in a different value system.
Understanding something isn't condoning it.
No they don't. There are some complete nutters in Western politics who have never been jailed and are not likely to be. They are more likely to face the consequences of any law breaking where the "ruling classes" wouldn't and are also far more likely to be under scrutiny by someone looking for a reason to justify the prosecution but they do need to actually commit the crime.
Absolute Monarchies seem to be much better at getting things done because they can avoid the committees but Western Democracicies overall are much more reasonable and tolerant of dissent, even if not by as much as is claimed.
3000 security personnel arrested members of a fringe German monarchist group, because of their cough credible threat to overthrow the federal republic.
This "political opposition", no matter what you think of them.
...where doing so would lead to 50 years in prison? None. That is a sentence fit for capital crimes, not for insulting something or someone.