Thailand: Activists face increasing risk with death in custody, ongoing use of royal defamation law and transnational repression

Thailand’s civic space is rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. Scores of individuals including activists have been charged or convicted for royal defamation (lèse-majesté) and given harsh sentences for their speeches and social posts critical of the monarchy. Some were denied bail. Censorship was also documented, and protesters have also been targeted with arrest and prosecution.

Thailand announced its candidature to the Human Rights Council in 2023. Members of the UN General Assembly will vote in a direct and secret ballot in October 2024. Announcing the country’s candidature, Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs said the government was committed to advancing democracy and human, civil and political rights.

In an apparent effort to avoid human rights scrutiny, Thailand’s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and other senior government officials did not meet with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, when he visited Bangkok from 5th-6th June 2024.

On 18th May 2024, Thailand became the first nation in Southeast Asia to legalize same-sex marriage after the Senate approved a marriage equality bill.

In recent months, an activist on hunger strike has died in custody, state-backed digital violence is being used to silence women and LGBTI activists and the Thai government arrested a Vietnamese activist in the country in the latest incident of transnational repression. A court is considering a petition to disband the opposition Move Forward Party. There has been ongoing prosecution of activists for royal defamation, as well as an opposition lawmaker. Activists were charged for a protest outside a government premises.

Association

Activist dies in custody

Netiporn ‘Bung’ Sanesangkhom, a 28-year-old activist, died on 14th May 2024, after suffering a cardiac arrest while in the Central Women’s Correctional Institute Hospital. Medical personnel at the prison hospital reportedly tried to revive her, including by intubation, apparently without success. A month on, no has been held accountable for her death.

She had been on a 110-day hunger strike in protest at her and others’ arbitrary detention since 26th January 2024. She was also calling for other activists to be granted temporary bail.

Netiporn was a member of protest group Thalu Wang, which has pushed for reform of Thailand’s powerful monarchy and amendment of the country’s draconian lèse-majesté law. She had also been part of the nationwide 2020 youth-led protests calling for constitutional, democratic and military reforms.

Police had initiated criminal proceedings against Netiporn in March 2022 after she interviewed members of the public at a Bangkok shopping mall about their opinions on road traffic controls imposed when royal motorcades are travelling. She faced charges of lèse-majesté and sedition under Article 112 and 116 of the Criminal Code.

She had previously been detained between 3rd May and 4th August 2022, during which time she went on a hunger strike for 64 days in protest. The authorities jailed Netiporn in January 2024 for contempt of court and her custody was extended after her bail was revoked in a lèse-majesté case.

Amnesty International called on the government to “to drop charges against and release all human rights defenders and other people who are unjustly detained” while Human Rights Watch urged the authorities “to investigate the circumstances of Netiporn’s custodial death and hold officials accountable if their actions contributed to her death”.

State-backed digital violence used to silence women and LGBTI activists

Women and LGBTI activists in Thailand are being subjected to an online onslaught of abusive speech laced with misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic language, sexualised content and other forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

According to a May 2024 report by Amnesty International, women and LGBTI activists have been unlawfully targeted with digital surveillance, including Pegasus spyware and online harassment, by state and non-state actors, in an effort to silence them.

As part of its research, Amnesty International interviewed nine of the fifteen women activists confirmed to have been targeted in 2020 and 2021 by Pegasus, the highly invasive spyware developed by Israeli cybertechnology company NSO Group. The report shows that targeted digital surveillance disproportionately impacted women and LGBTI activists, creating a uniquely gendered fear that the breach of their private data could lead to further blackmailing, harassment and discrimination.

Thai police arrest Vietnamese activist and refugee

On 11th June 2024, Thai immigration police in Bangkok arrested Vietnamese activist Y Quynh Bdap, 32, on immigration charges. He is currently detained at the Bangkok Remand Prison pending an extradition trial and is at risk of deportation to Vietnam, where he could be subjected to severe persecution.

Y Quynh Bdap is an ethnic minority human rights defender and religious freedom activist. He co-founded Montagnards Stand for Justice (MSFJ), an organisation that documents human rights violations and advocates for the rights of Montagnard people, an indigenous ethnic minority group in Vietnam’s central highlands

The Vietnamese government requested that the Thai authorities extradite Y Quynh Bdap, who has been living in Thailand since 2018 and had refugee status determined by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Vietnamese authorities are seeking Y Quynh Bdap on terrorism charges related to deadly riots in Dak Lak province in Vietnam’s central highland region in June 2023, for which he was sentenced in absentia to 10 years in prison. Y Quynh has long denied such charges

On 12th June 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor, expressed concerns about Y Quynh Bdap’s arrest and said that extraditing him to Vietnam would mean that Thailand was “not fit to be elected” to the UN Human Rights Council later this year.

Thai government assisting countries with transnational repression

In May 2024, Human Rights Watch issued a report highlighting that Thai authorities are helping neighboring governments to take unlawful actions against refugees and dissidents from abroad.

The report details Thai authorities’ upsurge in repression directed at foreign nationals seeking refugee protection in Thailand. Foreign governments have subjected exiled dissidents and activists living in Thailand to harassment, surveillance and physical violence, often with the cooperation and knowledge of Thai authorities.

Human Rights Watch analysed 25 cases that took place in Thailand between 2014 and 2023. These targets of transnational repression have often been effectively traded for critics of the Thai government living abroad.

In addition to facilitating assaults, abductions, enforced disappearances and other abuses, HRW said that the authorities repeatedly violated the principle of nonrefoulement: the prohibition on returning anyone to a place where they would face a real risk of persecution, torture or other serious ill-treatment, or a threat to life.

Court to consider petition to disband Move Forward Party

Thailand’s Constitutional Court in April 2024 agreed to consider a petition from the Election Commission to dissolve the opposition Move Forward Party. The petition requested the party’s dissolution and a 10-year ban on political activity by its executives. The commission filed the case over Move Forward’s campaign to reform the country’s strict lèse-majesté law, also known as Article 112, which criminalises insults against the monarchy and which rights groups say has been used to stifle dissent.

The decision to accept the complaint follows an order by the Constitutional Court in January 2024 that Move Forward stop all activity, including the use of speeches, publications and advertisements, aimed at repealing or amending Article 112 of the Criminal Code. The court said the party’s pledge to amend the royal insult law amounted to an attempt to “overthrow” the constitutional monarchy.

The progressive Move Forward Party won the highest number of seats in parliamentary elections in 2023, but its bid to lead Thailand’s first pro-democracy government after nearly a decade of army-backed rule was blocked by conservative MPs and senators.

Pita Limjaroenrat, the former leader of Move Forward, said on 9th June 2024 that the Constitutional Court does not have jurisdiction to rule on this case and that the petition filed by the Election Commission did not follow due process because Move Forward was not given an opportunity to defend itself before the case was submitted to the court.

The court convened on 18th June 2024 and set the date for the first hearing for 3rd July 2024.

Expression

Ongoing arrests and convictions of activists

The government has continued to use royal defamation (lèse-majesté) provisions or Article 112 to arrest and convict activists, critics and politicians for insulting the monarchy. Courts routinely deny bail to individuals charged or impose strict conditions in cases where bail is granted. The advocacy group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) says that since early 2020, more than 270 people have been charged with violating the law. At least 17 are being held in pre-trial detention.

According to TLHR, between July 2020 and May 2024, the Thai authorities also initiated proceedings against 152 persons for sedition (Article 116) and at least 202 people were charged under the Computer Crimes Act (CCA) in connection with their online expression.

On 25th March 2024, student Kanoon Siriphom Phumphuengputh was sentenced to two years prison for lèse-majesté. During a demonstration in November 2019, he was charged with making a speech in violation of section 112 of the Criminal Code, the Public Assembly Act (2015) and the COVID-19-related Emergency Decree. He was denied bail, citing flight risk and has since remained in custody.

On 29th April 2024, a court sentenced prominent human rights lawyer and democracy activist Arnon Nampa to a further two years imprisonment on royal insult charges. He was charged for making calls at a rally in 2021 to amend Thailand's royal defamation laws.

It is the latest charge levelled against Nampa, who now faces more than 10 years in prison. He is currently in jail after he was handed down a four-year sentence in January 2024 over three messages posted on Facebook in 2021, adding to the four years he was already serving for a prior lèse-majesté conviction. UN experts in March 2024 had expressed alarm over the use of lèse-majesté laws to convict and sentence him.

On the same day, two young Thai activists, Niraphorn “Bie” Onnkhaow, who recently engaged with the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and Panusaya “Rung” Sithijirawattanakul, a prominent protest leader, were indicted on charges of lèse-majesté and violating the Computer Crimes Act.

Charges against Bie and Rung were originally brought in November 2021, but the public prosecutor only recently decided to proceed with the indictments. Both Bie and Rung are part of the student-led protest group United Front of Thammasat and Demonstration (UFTD) and are vocal on freedom of expression, digital rights and gender equality. Authorities allege that the two youth activists are administrators of the Facebook page of the UFTD. The charges against them stem from accusations that they made three posts on the page that were considered as being defamatory towards the monarchy.

On 8th May 2024, political activist Panupong Jadnok was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of violating the lèse-majesté law and Computer Crimes Act, and a warrant was issued for his arrest after he failed to appear in court for sentencing. He was found guilty for a message posted on Facebook in November 2023 that was viewed as offensive to the monarchy.

Court sentences opposition lawmaker for defaming monarchy

On 27th May 2024, a Thai court sentenced an opposition lawmaker to two years in prison after finding her guilty of defaming the monarchy in a speech she made during a protest rally three years ago.

Chonthicha Jangrew of the Move Forward Party, popularly known by her nickname “Lookkate,” represents a constituency in Pathum Thani. Her charges stemmed from her speech in 2021 that demanded the release of all political prisoners during a rally with nine other activists in front of the Thanyaburi Provincial Court in Pathum Thani province.

She was found guilty for parts of the speech concerning how the government then led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha had amended laws to give King Vajiralongkorn more power to control the palace wealth, which is managed by the Crown Property Bureau.

Chonthicha was afterwards released on bail of 150,000 baht (USD 4,100). Had bail not been granted and had she been sent directly to prison, she would have immediately been removed from her seat in parliament.

Former Thai Prime Minister to go on trial for royal insult

The former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was formally indicted on 18th June 2024 for allegedly insulting the monarchy almost two decades ago. Thaksin, 74, appeared at Bangkok’s Ratchada criminal court accused of lèse-majesté. The case relates to an interview he gave to South Korean media in 2015. He was granted bail. Thaksin, a prominent telecommunications tycoon, was first elected prime minister in 2001, but removed five years later in a military coup amid mass protests.

Peaceful Assembly

Activists charged for protest outside government premises

In March 2024, two leaders of the People’s Movement for a Just Society (P-MOVE) were charged under the Public Assembly Act (2015). The indictment referred to protests that took place from 5th to 28th February 2024, citing violations of the ban on protesting within 50 metres of government premises and marching without notifying the authorities in advance.

P-Move is a civil society group comprising eight networks. Its mission is to promote land rights, sustainable land and natural resources management, social welfare, human rights, and democracy

The protest outside Government House was held to follow up on the government’s progress in solving land and natural resources issues.

On 21st March 2024, the two leaders were charged in three separate cases under the Public Assembly Act. This is the first protest-related case filed since Srettha Thavisin was elected Prime Minister in August 2023.