YouTuber facing five years in jail for eating bats
KINGSTON, Jamaica — A Thai YouTube blogger is facing five years in jail after videoing herself eating a bowl of bat soup.
According to a report from Daily Mail, Phonchanok Srisunaklua was arrested after uploading a video of herself eating bats from a bowl of soup. The footage, which has been making the rounds on popular social media platform TikTok, was posted to Srisunaklua’s account on Monday.
The video was quickly flooded with comments from outraged viewers alarmed at the health implications. One viewer said: ‘If you’re going to die, die alone. No one will blame you. But you’ll be damned if you start a pandemic,” Daily Mail reported.
According to some experts, bats are said to carry over 10,000 viruses that could be transmitted to humans and start another pandemic.
The YouTuber, who has since apologised for the incident, was arrested for ‘possession of protected wildlife carcasses’ and ‘crimes violating the Computer Crimes Act (2007)’.
