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As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing nationality in the context of criminal law. So two things we discuss on this channel rather frequently, sort of two great tastes that taste great together, as it were. I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Nation, that is nationthailand.com, the article is titled: Thai Police instructed to stop revealing nationalities of foreign suspects. Quoting directly: "The Royal Thai police has instructed all Law-enforcement authorities to stop revealing the nationalities of suspects for fear that sensationalist reports will hurt international ties. RTP spokesman Pol General Roi Ingkapairoj issued an urgent order via police radio on Saturday calling on all nine provincial bureaus to ensure the nationalities of suspects are no longer revealed to the media" Quoting further: "The Police General said that the way Police Officers announced cases involving foreigners to the Press has affected Thailand's ties with countries the suspects come from." Yeah, shouldn't we be kind of asking a question about that? If there are a ton of people coming from somewhere, they are all coming here and committing a bunch of crimes, we might have bigger issues than just the image and the ties between different countries. Just saying I mean, just some commentary. Quoting further: "From now on, investigators will only be allowed to provide details of cases without revealing nationalities." Quoting further: "Sources say that Roi issued the order after Ambassadors from several countries filed complaints saying that Police interviews resulted in lurid media reports which gave people the wrong idea of their countries." That may be totally true.

I can totally see circumstances, I've always, the media in Thailand, I have made my displeasure if you want to call it that, known. I think I made a video a while back you know the "Tattletale Media Thailand" that was kind of running around trying to point out people who were like sitting on a beach in the middle of lockdown and "oh my God" Yeah, I have had some issues with the media here. I also have been known to point out that from time to time media outlets here will kind of bury the lead on one thing in order to kind of make something look like it's a different way. That is sort of, I criticize that; I have my issues with that, I have a number of issues with that but that's not what we are really talking about here. I have always found especially what I would call sort of the police blotter reporting back home, back in the United States and I guess this is my home now, but where I'm from, the old country if you will you know the police blotter kind of reporting arrest reports and things. Here in Thailand, there have been some interesting stories over the years. I can understand why maybe some Ambassadors would say "hey why not just omit the nationality thing". I can see somebody from some country saying hey I don't want everybody, I'm just going to pull something out of the air, just kind of joking here, but I could see an Ambassador saying, "hey I don't want everybody in the world thinking that people from British Honduras" I'm just going to make up a country that doesn't exist anymore, people from British Honduras all come to Thailand and steal ice cream, we don't want it to look like that." I can kind of understand that thinking. 

That said I mean it does kind of beg the question of well if there are a lot of one nationality doing something, that might be more the story than reporting on nationality. That said, this is kind of a sea change. In 15 years I have been here they have always, oftentimes they will omit names, I tend to like to omit names, I don't really like to get into that, but now they are going to omit nationality in certain cases too. It is going to be interesting to watch but yeah it is a major sea change in terms of police reporting here in the Kingdom of Thailand.