Don't Disrespect Thai Royalty

(Bangkok, Thailand) According to the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), a Thai court has ordered hundreds of websites to be shut down because their content is disrespectful to the royal family.

"(The ministry) sought court orders on September 2, 2008 to shut down about 400 websites and ... block 1,200 sites it considers to be either a danger to national security or a disturbance to social order," SEAPA said.

The minister for information and communications technology, Mun Patanotai, said the sites had been detected between March and August, and prosecuted under Thailand's Computer Crime Act, according to SEAPA.

The ministry is now seeking to prosecute the people responsible for the websites, it said.

Meanwhile, an Australian author has been jailed by the Thai authorities for a passage he wrote in a book, "Verisimilitude," published in 2005. The author, 41-year-old Harry Nicolaides, has apologized, however, he was denied bail and faces 15 years in a Thai prison if convicted.

In summary, it's illegal to say that the Thai royal family has no clothes.


[Update 2/21/09]

Nicolaides was sentenced to three years in prison and pardoned after six months.