52 Dictating the Internet: Case of Isma-ae Tae In February 2018, Isma-ae Tae, a human rights defender from Thailand’s southern border provinces and founder of Patani Human Rights Organization, had a complaint lodged against him for criminal defamation by a Director of the Internal Operations Security Command (ISOC) in Thailand’s military.157 He was thereafter charged by the police. The accusations related to a TV programme that had aired on 5 February 2018 in which Tae had described being tortured and ill-treated by soldiers in 2008. In October 2016, Thailand’s Supreme Administrative Court had ordered the Royal Thai Army and Ministry of Defence to pay 305,000 Baht (approx. USD 9,700) in compensation to Tae, after it found he had been “physically assaulted” during detention and detained illegally for nine days – exceeding the limit of seven days permitted under Thai Martial Law.158 In a similar case: In November 2017, Anuphong Phanthachayangkun, a former Subdistrict Head from Narathiwat province, was sentenced to one year in prison after the police filed a criminal defamation complaint against him for filing a complaint against 20 police officers for allegedly subjecting him to torture leading to a “confession” in relation to a 2004 case.159 157 ISOC is responsible for security operations in Thailand’s restive Southern Border Provinces. 158 ICJ, ‘Thailand: immediately stop criminal defamation complaint against torture victim’, 15 February 2018, Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Thailand-Isma-ae-Taedefamation-case-News-Press-releases-2018-ENG.pdf 159 ICJ, ‘Thailand: immediately stop criminal defamation complaint against torture victim’, 15 February 2018, Available at: https://www.icj.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Thailand-Isma-ae-Taedefamation-case-News-Press-releases-2018-ENG.pdf