Thailand’s has repeatedly affirmed a commitment to ensuring protections for human rights defenders and upholding business and human rights principles. However, human rights defenders in Thailand continue to face judicial harassment, including by companies, for exercising their rights.
Thailand’s problematic criminal defamation laws are particularly used to target, harass, and attempt to silence human rights defenders in Thailand. For example, the controversial Thai poultry company, Thammakaset Company Limited has brought at least 37 criminal defamation complaints against 22, mostly women, human rights defenders in Thailand since 2016.
Although Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly amended the Criminal Procedural Code in 2018 to allow courts to dismiss and reject complaints filed “in bad faith,” Thai courts have consistently allowed cases of judicial harassment to proceed.
Recommendations to Protecting Human Rights Defenders from Judicial Harassment
- Amend the criminal code to decriminalize defamation
- Urgently enact anti-judicial harassment legislation
- End all unwarranted complaints and charges against human rights defenders and others