Prachatai has monitored the case closely, writing that "the Thai-born American citizen was arrested by the Department of Special Investigation in late May this year for allegedly translating the banned book ‘The King Never Smiles’ and placing links to download the translation on the internet, violating the lèse majesté law and the 2007 Computer Crimes Act."
A political prisoner, no question; and a U.S. citizen, no less. A used car salesman from Boulder, Colorado. By international standards, the charges are conspicuously political as they are innocuous.
The irony stretches from Bangkok to Washington, that, privately, so many will 'confess' to the charge. Ownership of a book that most all Bangkok's brood of journalists, activists and scholars keep, awkwardly stacked on bookshelves away from the prying eyes of the state. Those who know the book's premise, its chapters and verse and most controversial revelations, even the supposedly secret sources from which much of the material is drawn. There are, I am told, multiple copies available online. The book comes in conversation - not all agree with its conclusions. It is the sole biography of Thailand's King Bhumibol, twelve years in the making, widely-researched and deftly told. The King Never Smiles. Most all go by the acronym TKNS, or, online, where censors troll, that book by Mr. Handley.
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