Thai ban for Zed Books title

A Zed Books title about contemporary Thailand has been officially banned by the Royal Thai police following newspaper reviews.
 
Thai officials have ruled that stockists and distributors of Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s A Kingdom in Crisis could face three years imprisonment and a 60,000 baht (£1,163.29) fine.

A report from independent, non-profit Thai daily web newspaper Prachatai said the announcement of the book ban had been published in the Royal Gazette. “The police claimed that based on the book reviews published on the South China Morning Post, published on 4th October and the Independent, published on 8th October, the book contains content defaming the Thai monarchy,” it said.

MacGregor Marshall is a former Reuters journalist who focuses mainly on Southeast Asia. He is currently in exile from Thailand for breaking the country’s Thailand’s lèse majesté (violating majesty) law, and now lives with his Thai family in Singapore.
 
A Kingdom in Crisis, which was published last month, explores the recent political crisis in Thailand during the anti-government protests between November 2013 and May 2014, and the fallout from this.
 
Following the ban, Zed Books has said that it is “proud to publish books that are dangerous for those in power, and we will support our author 100%”.