COMMENTARY
Going to jail for writing is a horror story
- Published: 9 Mar 2013 at 00.00
- Newspaper section: Business
Interestingly, getting people killed can't be as bad as disturbing people. Fatal recklessness isn't as unforgivable as deliberate provocation. At one extreme, murder is sometimes more tolerable than writing. To know how to toe the line, to know what to write and what not to write, has become a political as well as literary dilemma - and here we're talking about Chinese Nobel literature laureate Mo Yan's semi-endorsement of censorship and jailed editor Somyot Prueksakasemsuk's sentence for breaking the lese majeste law. And we thought clemency was the way of our world.
Let's recap.
On Tuesday Kanpitak "Mu Ham" Patchimsawat got a two-year suspended jail term for premeditated murder, attempted murder and physical assault after he drove his Mercedes into a crowd waiting at a bus stop, killing one woman and injuring two other people. At first he got 10 years, but the Appeal Court reduced and suspended the prison term. Kanpitak claims mental disorder as the cause of that abominable bout of road rage. In short, the man walks.
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