Couple faces execution for living in home built near Thai waters
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/bitcoin-couple-nadia-thepdet-and-chad-elwartowski-face-death-penalty-for-seasteading-off-thailand
Nadia Thepdet takes beautiful photos of the ocean. One recent picture on her Instagram shows the sun setting over the waves. In another, she stands on a boat off Thailand’s
coast, holding a golden coin with bitcoin logo. But Thepdet’s love of bitcoin and the sea could cost her her life.
She and her boyfriend Chad Elwartowski are cryptocurrency evangelists who tried to live out the libertarian idea of seasteading. The concept, beloved by tech types like Peter
Thiel, proposes a set of floating islands in international waters. The idea is to escape countries and laws. Now the law is coming for Thepdet and Elwartowski.
The couple moved into the first off-shore house by seasteading company Ocean Builders earlier this year. Their new home was located atop an oil rig-like structure 12 miles off
the Thai coast, technically in international waters—but Thailand says they weren’t far enough from the coast. Thai authorities accuse the couple of breaching a law prohibiting
acts that endangers Thai sovereignty, according to the Bangkok Post.
Breaking the law is punishable by death, or life in prison. Now Thepdet and Elwartowski say they’re on the run. “This is ridiculous,” Elwartowski wrote in a Monday Facebook
post. “We lived on a floating house boat for a few weeks and now Thailand wants us killed.” With Thai authorities searching for them, the couple is now denying allegations that
they tried to undermine Thai sovereignty.
So from what I gather they promoted some company's "house" that was built 12 nautical miles off the coast of Thailand by just living in it. Thailand then says it threatens their sovereignty as a nation and is now trying to hut down the two individual's and imprison them for life/execute them. Am I missing something important or is this as bat shit as it sounds?
Absolute lunacy on the part of the Thai government, murdering two people for living off the coast is complete bullshit.
The punishment seems completely disproportionate to the crime.
What crime? They are in international waters.
If anything, that just displays a whole lot of insecurity, if a couple living in the middle of fucking nowhere in the middle of the sea is actually threatening their sovereignty.
Maybe try reading the article they are 12 nautical miles off the coast which does not qualify.
Not saying this isn't insane, but don't just spout stuff.
Yea I'm pretty sure its quite the clickbait.
Its not uncommon that for some eastern countries to not be light on punishment (see drug smuggling cases) but somehow I doubt that Thailand would go as far as executing.
Then again, you also don't want to be jailed there.
The law is the only thing that matters and the article states that 12 miles off the coast is international waters. Whether or not it seems logical to you, the law is what should count here, not what feels right.
International waters do not start at 12 nm, countries have 12 nm of territorial sea followed by a 12 nm of contiguous zone which is then followed by a up to 200 nm of exclusive economic zone. Only after all of these things you are in international waters.
Imagine being a national government and thinking that two people living 12 miles out from your coast threaten your sovereignty
Again.
Imagine feeling threatened by two people living 12 miles off your coast. Just ask them to leave or file for residency. Don't threaten them with life in prison or execution.
Both a 5 minute Google search and the article itself contradict that.
That's not the law and it's easy to find evidence that that is not the law.
The year is 2020, a young wounded soldier crawls away from the burning wreckage of a burning tank. As he struggles to stands up straight he sees the bodies of his fellow comrades stew across them. Limbs torn straight out of their sockets, bodies squished like pancakes, some piles of ashes of vaporized victims. An entire battalion utterly destroyed. The wrecked skyline of Taipei in the distanced in a hazy smog of smoke and loud monstrous roars.
"How could two people do all this?" The soldier thought.
Yeah except this is completely untrue.
Based off your ratings I guess no one actually reads these articles.
They accidentally ran afoul of laws intended to punish agents from other countries who are trying to poach territory from them. It's not like Thailand decided "oh and if some day in the future some rich nutcases want to live in a floating box, we should kill 'em." That law is to discourage shit like what China does, plopping outposts onto someone else's islands and then claiming the island and the waters around it.
That's pretty much how Thailand and Indonesia work.
Understandable but they couldve told the couple to move or hell maybe even tax/fine them. Trying to murder them is such an crazy over reaction to such a petty case.
Which really makes me lose some sympathy for their government's problems with China. Are they a cyber punk dyposia like China? No but their laws and pu ishments are very strict and brutal. .
the couple's expressed intent is that they were trying to avoid being beholden to domestic laws. that's why they built in "international waters." They clearly intend to get resources from Thailand, but do not want to be subject to its jurisdiction.
While the punishment may be a little ridiculous, Thailand is asserting its jurisdiction. They're not just going to let someone within their jurisdiction try to be a sovereign citizen. That's not how the rule of law works.
Should've known better. Punishment is too harsh and shouldn't be carried out in full. But Thailand isn't in the wrong here. At all.
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