CNN
—
The second son of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn made a surprise visit to a New York exhibition featuring the stories of people who have been prosecuted under the country’s harsh royal defamation laws, signaling a willingness to talk openly about the taboo topic.
Thailand has some of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws, and criticizing the King, Queen, or heir apparent can lead to a maximum 15-year prison sentence for each offense, which makes even talking about the royal family fraught with risk.
Sentences for those convicted under Article 112 of Thailand’s Criminal Code can be decades long and hundreds of people have been prosecuted in recent years.
…
