Calendars are supposed to be practical, harmless gifts during the New Year, but some calendars can land you in jail, especially if you are living in Thailand and Myanmar.
In Thailand, authorities confiscated some calendars that featured the photos of two former prime ministers. Meanwhile, in Myanmar, the government arrested five men who printed a calendar about an ‘illegal’ ethnic group.
The Thai junta, which grabbed power in 2014, is accused of stopping the distribution of 2016 calendars printed by Pheu Thai, the political party of Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra. Thaksin was Thailand’s prime minister who was ousted by a coup in 2006. He fled the country in 2008 after being convicted of corruption and continues to live in exile today. Yingluck is Thaksin’s younger sister who was elected prime minister in 2011 but was also ousted by a coup in 2014.
On January 5, some women supporters of Yingluck were summoned by the army for distributing the 2016 calendars of the opposition Pheu Thai. Some municipal officials in north Thailand were against the giving away of calendars, which included a photo of Yingluck hugging her older brother Thaksin. Civil servants were told not to distribute calendars during public assemblies because it can be interpreted as an act of ‘political partiality’. (Courtesy of Global Voices)
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