What if you wrote a book that no-one read, but you were jailed for it? Sounds like a nightmare, right? Harry Nicolaides, author of the 2005 novel "Verisimilitude" is living that very nightmare.
Yesterday, Nicolaides was sentenced to three years in jail because he was found guilty of lese majeste; insulting the monarchy. Authorities charged that a paragraph of this novel insulted the king, the crown prince and the royal family. The charges actually carry a six year sentence, but the judge halved the sentence because Nicolaides pleaded guilty. Pleading guilty for a halved sentence is a common practice here in the kingdom.
Nicolaides, who has been in Thailand since 2003, was leaving the country when he was arrested last year. It is not known why the authorities waited so long to after the book's publication to arrest him.
Verisimilitude is anything but a best seller. Only seven copies of the fifty printed were ever sold. While CNN reported Nicolaides conviction, they refrained from reproducing the offending paragraph because to do so would have resulted in the prosecution of their staff in Thailand on the same charges. I will not repeat them either, but they are not hard to find on the Internet.
I am pretty critical of the lese majeste law. I think that it actually hurts Thailand as it inhibits a full and frank discussion of its political future and that it has been used as a tool to attempt to destroy one's political enemies.
Despite my misgivings about the lese majeste law itself, Nicolaides is either incredibly stupid or reckless. Nicolaides' claim that he meant no insult and is surprised by all of this is highly dubious. He didn't write something that would be benign in the U.S. or Australia (his native country) but insulting to Thais because of cultural differences. His writing would be considered offensive, although not criminal, in the Western world.
The other thing that makes his actions so unbelievable is that he lived in Thailand for two years prior to writing the book. Nicolaides was a writer, blogger and university lecturer. I have no doubt that he knew about the lese majeste laws when he penned his novel.
Despite the fact that he had to know the law and that his words would break it, he went ahead with his book. I don't know if he thought that the authorities would not learn of it because it was written in English, or perhaps that his falang skin would cause the police to look the other way. In any case, he was wrong, and a little throw away paragraph in a novel that sold seven copies just might cost him the next three years of his life.
Although his attorney stated that no decision had yet been made, the next logical step is for Nicolaides to appeal for a royal pardon. In the past, foreigners who have run afoul of the lese majeste laws have been successful in obtaining Royal forgiveness. They are then usually expelled after their release.
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