Curtailing Free Expression, Opinion and Information Online in Southeast Asia
Network, who had shared information on Facebook relating to the cases;
and other separate cases against Nan Win, other migrant workers and
Sutharee Wannasiri.164
Case of Angkhana Neelapaijit
In November 2019, Angkhana Neelapaijit, former National Human
Rights Commissioner of Thailand and a recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay
Award in 2019, was served with a court warrant following the filing of a
defamation suit against her by Thammakaset Co. Ltd. under sections 326
and 328 of the Criminal Code. The suit alleged harm from two posts she
had made on Twitter, where she had shared links to press statements
by civil society referring to the case of Sutharee Wannasiri, Nan Win and
other migrant workers.
The first Twitter post in question was a re-Tweet by Angkhana Neelapaijit
in December 2018 to the ICJ website which had a link to a joint statement
co-signed by the ICJ and 15 other organizations, calling on Thammakaset
Co. Ltd. to cease legal harassment of individuals for bringing to light
labour violations. The second Twitter post in June 2019 had shared a link
to a news release by the NGO Fortify Rights.
Both posts had allegedly contained a link to the film by Fortify Rights
which had been the subject of the suits against Sutharee Wannasiri, Nan
Win and others. Thammakaset Co. Ltd. argued that her Twitter posts had,
in ‘sharing’ weblinks to statements which contained weblinks to the film,
violated criminal defamation laws.
In February 2020, a “conciliation conference” is expected to be held in
this case against the former National Human Rights Commissioner.165
164 Information from ICJ partners. See also FIDH, OMCT, ‘Thailand: FACT SHEET Thammakaset vs.
human rights defenders and workers in Thailand’, May 2019, Available at: https://www.fidh.org/
IMG/pdf/obsthailande2019web.pdf
165 ICJ, ‘Thailand: ICJ condemns the use of criminal defamation law to harass Angkhana Neelapaijit’,
27 November 2019, Available at: https://www.icj.org/thailand-icj-condemns-the-use-of-criminaldefamation-law-to-harass-angkhana-neelapaijit/
55