This article forms part of our Human Rights Day Series, highlighting three urgent cases we are supporting to underscore the diversity of threats facing journalists and the profound impact of legal harassment, criminalisation, and impunity. Read our initial article here.
In 2021, Thai investigative journalist Dr Chutima Sidasathian was targeted with five separate criminal defamation complaints in retaliation for her reporting on alleged local corruption in Nakhon Ratchasima province. In 2023, the charges were formally recognised as a SLAPP by Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission. All but one of these cases have since been dismissed.
Despite her ongoing intensive cancer treatment abroad, and a formal request to withdraw the final case on the basis that it has no merit, the matter is still moving forward.
As Sidasathian recently told Media Defence: “This is what I want before I die… for the case against me to be dropped, and for Thailand to abolish criminal defamation.”
Her case is emblematic of a broader, systemic pattern in Thailand, where criminal defamation laws and vexatious legal proceedings are routinely used to target journalists who expose corruption or misconduct and to suppress critical reporting.
Relentless Legal Harassment for Exposing Corruption
The Rohingya Crisis
While working at the independent news site Phuketwan, Sidasathian and editor Alan Morison helped expose one of Thailand’s most significant human rights crises since the 2004 tsunami: the trafficking of Rohingya boat people and the alleged involvement of Thai naval officers.
Phuketwan reported on Rohingya abuses almost daily from 2008, making the outlet a key source for international journalists. Drawing on this extensive field experience, Sidasathian later worked as a fixer for Reuters reporters whose investigation went on to win a Pulitzer Prize.
The work came with severe risks. “Trading in living human beings is about as corrupt as it gets,” she recalled. She was taken into the jungle to reach trafficking camps, warned to stay low to avoid armed guards, and later received threatening calls and anonymous images of guns. The psychological toll was considerable; she frequently encountered victims of torture and abuse.
Following the publication of the award–winning Reuters investigation in 2013, Phuketwan reproduced a 41-word paragraph from the report that referred to alleged involvement by Thai naval officers. Shortly after their article appeared, they were charged with criminal defamation and a violation of the Computer Crimes Act.
The charges, brought by senior naval officers seeking to protect the Navy’s reputation, carried a possible seven-year prison sentence and heavy fines. Although both were acquitted in 2015, the case marked the beginning of a long pattern of legal harassment aimed at silencing Sidasathian’s investigative reporting.
Nakhon Ratchasima Banking Scandal
After her reporting on the Rohingya crisis, Sidasathian turned her attention to local corruption in Nakhon Ratchasima province, commonly known as Korat. In early 2021, she posted on Facebook about farmers who had become indebted to local authorities after receiving loans through a government lending scheme.
Her investigation uncovered evidence that funds intended for the farmers had allegedly been diverted illegally. Consequently, the farmers have reported that they are now being forced to repay credit that they did not receive. According to the Sidasathian, this has resulted in significant harm to villagers, including financial ruin and three suicides.
Sidasathian’s Facebook posts documented the banking scandal and criticised the local government’s alleged connection to the misappropriation of funds. In response, five criminal defamation complaints were filed against her, amounting to nine separate charges, each carrying a potential two-year prison sentence.
Sidasathian was acquitted in the first case in March 2024, with the judge confirming that she was entitled to express criticism of local administrators. After her lawyer submitted detailed written arguments to the court demonstrating the lack of merit in the complaints, the prosecutors issued non-prosecution orders in three additional cases.
One case, however, remains, with the next hearing scheduled today, the 17th of December.
Deeply Connected to the Communities She Defends
Sidasathian’s commitment to affected communities extends far beyond her reporting. During the Rohingya crisis, she spent time tracing missing relatives on behalf of families desperate for information, helping migrants identify the whereabouts of loved ones scattered across borders, and securing safe third-country refuge for sources who faced retaliation for speaking to investigators.
In one case, she located a trafficking survivor who had been missing for 24 years. Abandoned by traffickers after being injured, he had rebuilt his life on a remote island and started a family of his own. Although he was unable to return to Myanmar, he recorded a video message for his relatives that Sidasathian took back to his family.
In rural Nakhon Ratchasima, she saw how isolation and poverty limited opportunities for children who had never travelled beyond their villages. She mobilised donations, arranged transport, and secured a bus so they could go on a school trip to a nearby city. She also supported the education of several children whose families had been impacted by the banking crisis.
And when anxious farmers, unable to read or unfamiliar with legal procedures, were summoned to testify in court over the loan scandal, Sidasathian did not just report their stories. She sat beside them for hours, reviewing their statements, helping them understand what to expect, and preparing them to speak publicly.
Her bravery and deep connection to these communities have made her reporting sharper and more impactful. But it has also made her a target for powerful figures determined to silence her and prevent further scrutiny.
Thailand’s Abusive Criminal Defamation Laws
Thailand’s criminal defamation laws (Penal Code Sections 326–328) continue to provide authorities and powerful individuals with an easy mechanism to silence criticism. These provisions impose prison sentences of up to two years and substantial fines for statements deemed harmful to someone’s reputation, particularly when made through the press or online. Truth is not an absolute defence, especially in cases courts deem to concern “private” matters, even when reporting clearly serves the public interest.
Defamation in Thailand can trigger both criminal and civil liability, but criminal cases are especially prone to abuse. Criminal defamation is a “compoundable” offence in Thailand meaning a case moves forward simply because an injured person files a complaint within three months. This can allow baseless or retaliatory cases to advance easily through the courts. Once filed, cases routinely proceed to trial, subjecting defendants to years of hearings, mounting legal fees, and the constant threat of imprisonment. The process itself becomes the punishment, entrenching a powerful chilling effect on investigative journalism.
Wider Pattern
Sidasathian’s case is far from isolated. In September 2025, Thai police arrested Australian journalist and academic Murray Hunter at Suvarnabhumi Airport after Malaysian officials lodged a criminal defamation complaint relating to articles critical of the Malaysian government’s internet regulator that he published on Substack in 2024. International freedom of expression organisations view the case as a cross-border SLAPP designed to silence criticism beyond Malaysia’s borders.
Separately, recent reporting by independent outlet Whale Hunting, asserted that Thai Deputy Prime Minister Thammanat Prompow has repeatedly threatened journalists with billion-baht lawsuits. According to the report he has already filed upwards of 100 defamation lawsuits against critics. Such threats – even when not formally filed – reinforce a climate in which journalists expect legal retaliation for critical reporting.
These incidents reflect a consistent and deeply entrenched pattern: powerful officials and politically connected actors turning to criminal law to retaliate against reporting. Over 25,000 criminal defamation cases have been filed in Thailand since 2015, many described by human rights and press-freedom groups as SLAPPs.
An Advocate for Change
Against this backdrop, Sidasathian has emerged as a prominent advocate for structural reform. When she faced the lawsuits filed against her for her reporting on the banking crisis, she told Media Defence: “I am hoping that with my second time as a ‘criminal,’ I can conclusively demonstrate the injustice of Thailand’s criminal defamation laws. Those laws should be repealed.”
Despite the pressure she faces, she continues to travel to public forums, share her experience, and engage directly with lawmakers, policymakers and regulators to press for the decriminalisation of defamation in Thailand, arguing that defamation should be addressed, if at all, through civil law, not through the threat of imprisonment.
Her stance echoes longstanding recommendations from international human rights bodies, including the ECtHR and the UN Human Rights Committee. While the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has never entirely ruled out criminal defamation, it has established that criminal sanctions for speech related offences should for the most part be used in exceptional circumstances such as hate speech and incitement to violence. The court has often held that authorities must exercise restraint in using criminal sanctions in defamation cases, (e.g Otegi Mondragon v. Spain) and instead use civil and disciplinary penalties (e.g Raichinov v. Bulgaria).
Yet criminal defamation remains on the books in over 160 countries, including Thailand.
Sidasathian’s upcoming hearing will determine the trajectory of the remaining case against her. Yet the broader legal framework that enables such prosecutions remains unchanged. Until Thailand reforms its criminal defamation laws, journalists like Sidasathian will continue to face dangerous and wholly avoidable retaliation for reporting in the public interest.
Media Defence supported Sidasathian’s legal defence in both the 2015 case and in all of the cases that have been filed since 2021.
