On Tuesday 1 September, the Phuket Provincial Court dismissed all charges against the editor and a journalist for Thai news website, PhuketWan.
PhuketWan had been sued by the Thai navy for a story on the smuggling of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, in which they quoted from a Reuters report which had discussed alleged involvement in the smuggling by the Thai military.
The Reuters journalists won a Pulitzer Prize for their reporting, but the two journalists for PhuketWan – editor, Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian, were charged with criminal libel following a complaint by the Thai navy. If found guilty, they could have spent up to seven years in jail and pay thousands of US dollars in fine.
Dismissing the charges against the two, the Phuket Provincial Court also commented that the Cyber Crime legislation under which the case had been brought should not be used to pursue libel cases against journalists.
Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian commented:
“We were elated with the result and pleased to have a courtroom full of supporters and observers to hear what amounts to a victory for media freedom, for Thai justice and for Thailand. Our legal team, led by SR Law, performed magnificently and called up a team of expert defence witnesses who made the allegations look what they truly were – a feeble misuse of laws designed to catch computer hackers and data base thieves, not to unfairly pursue journalists.”
MLDI had provided financial support for the defence, and Morison added that ‘the lawyers could not have performed as they did without the support of the Media Legal Defence Initiative, for which we are extremely grateful.
Recent News
We’re recruiting: Legal Officer
About Media Defence Media Defence is a charity that helps media to defend their rights. We support independent media, journalists and citizen journalists who are under legal threat by making sure that lawyers are available to defend them. We engage in strategic litigation to improve the regulatory environment for media freedom, make grants to organisations […]
Les lois sur les “fake news” sont-elles le meilleur moyen de lutter contre la désinformation?
En décembre 2021, la Grèce a rejoint la liste croissante des pays qui légifèrent contre les “fausses nouvelles” (ou « fake news » en anglais). La modification du code pénal vise à poursuivre les citoyens grecs qui diffusent de fausses informations pendant la pandémie de COVID-19. Tout citoyen diffusant de fausses informations sur la santé publique risque […]
Our Journalist Impact Survey 2022
“If i didn’t have Media Defence’s support, I would have been condemned .” – Journalist supported by Media Defence in 2022. In 2022, we carried out our sixth annual Journalist Impact Survey to look at the longer-term impact of our support to journalists. We designed our Journalist Impact Survey to understand the quality of our […]