Exactly 20 Swedes are in jail in Thailand at the moment. ‘They are often put in custody for so called overstays’, Helena Wahlström from the Foreign Ministry in Sweden said earlier this month. But according to the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok none of the cases reported had to do with so called visa overstays.
Today more than 200 Swedes are in jail all over the world. Exactly 20 of them are doing time in Thailand. According to the Foreign Ministry in Sweden it is difficult to say if the number is unusual high compared with earlier years.
However, Helene Wahlström, Deputy Director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is quoted in Sydsvenskan earlier this month for saying that:
“[…] You can see tendencies for a certain country, like Thailand, which has strong regulations against staying longer than the visa allows. And Swedes are often put in custody for so called overstays,” Helena Wahlström says.
But according to the Swedish Embassy in Bangkok none of the crimes reported were about visa overstays.
“We have exactly 20 cases of Swedes sitting in jail in Thailand at the moment. There are no specific pattern in what crimes they got arrested for. It is all sorts of crimes. But none of them have to do with visa overstays,” a spokesperson from the Swedish Embassy says.
Read the full interview with Helena Wahlström in Sydsvenskan:
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/sverige/over-200-svenskar-fangslade-utomlands/
