AI – Amnesty International (Author): “The State of the World's Human Rights; Thailand 2023”, Document #2107940

Background

The pro-democracy Move Forward Party won the most seats in national elections in May but failed to secure enough votes from MPs to form a government. On 5 September, the runner-up Pheu Thai Party took office along with its coalition partners that included two parties with close ties to the military.

Freedom of expression and assembly

The government continued its crackdown on overwhelmingly peaceful protests calling for political and social reforms. According to the local NGO Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) by December at least 1,938 people had been charged in relation to their participation in protests since 2020. The majority, 1,469, were charged under an emergency decree banning public gatherings during the Covid-19 pandemic which was lifted in late 2022. Hundreds of others were charged with lèse-majesté (defaming, insulting or threatening the monarch) or with sedition. As of December, the prosecutions of 795 cases were ongoing.

Among those convicted was Anon Nampa, a prominent human rights lawyer who was found guilty of lèse-majesté on 26 September and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for delivering a speech during a protest in October 2020 calling for a national conversation on the role of the monarchy. He faced 13 other counts of lèse-majesté.

The courts repeatedly denied requests for bail by Anon Nampa and 23 others detained on protest-related charges. In January, pro-democracy activists Tantawan Tuatulanon and Orawan Phuphong were hospitalized after going on hunger strike to protest against bail refusals. Both were charged with lèse-majesté in 2022 for conducting public opinion polls about royal motorcades.

The authorities also continued to use the Computer Crimes Act against their critics. According to TLHR, at least 195 people had been charged under this law since 2020. They included political activist Ekachai Hongkangwan who was acquitted in June of impeding a royal motorcade during a pro-democracy protest, but was sentenced in July to one year’s imprisonment under an ambiguous provision of the Act that criminalizes the sharing of obscene information.¹

Children’s rights

Amnesty International’s research exposed the multiple ways in which the rights of children, who have been at the forefront of mass protests, have been suppressed by the authorities including through criminalization, surveillance and intimidation.²

As of October, criminal charges had been brought against 286 children for their participation in protests since 2020. They included Yok, a 15-year-old girl who was arrested in March in connection with her participation in a protest in 2022 calling for the repeal of the lèse-majesté law.³ She was held in pretrial detention for 51 days before a court ordered her release.

On 20 July, the Central Juvenile and Family Court sentenced Noppasin “Sainam” Treelayapewat to one year’s imprisonment, suspended for two years, after he was found guilty of lèse-majesté for taking part in a mock fashion show in 2020 that satirized the monarchy. Sainam was aged 16 at the time of the show.⁴

Human rights defenders

There were growing concerns about the digital harassment of human rights defenders. In August, six UN human rights experts wrote to the Thai government expressing concern about lack of protection measures or accountability for the online intimidation and harassment of two prominent human rights defenders, Angkhana Neelapaijit and Anchana Heemmina. In February, the Civil Court dismissed a lawsuit brought by the two women against the Royal Thai Army and the Prime Minister’s Office, which they alleged had carried out an online smear campaign against them in connection with their legitimate human rights work.

Right to privacy

In April, four UN Special Rapporteurs wrote to the Prime Minister raising concerns about the use of cyber-intelligence company NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware in devices belonging to 35 people including human rights defenders, politicians and civil society activists during nationwide protests in 2020 and 2021, and the government’s failure to protect those allegedly subjected to unlawful surveillance. On 13 June, Jatupat Boonpattararaksa, a human rights defender whose phone was infected with the spyware, filed a lawsuit against the NSO Group seeking financial compensation for violating his right to privacy.

Torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearances

In February, following years of pressure by civil society and victims, the Act on the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance entered into force criminalizing torture, other forms of ill-treatment and enforced disappearance for the first time, and establishing procedural safeguards against such practices. However, the law did not include provisions which would make statements obtained by torture or during enforced disappearance inadmissible as evidence in legal proceedings.⁵

On 28 September, a court acquitted four national park officers of abducting and murdering Indigenous Karen human rights defender Pholachi “Billy” Rakchongcharoen. Billy was involved in a lawsuit against Kaeng Krachan National Park officers for the forced evictions of local communities and burning of Karen homes when he disappeared in Kaeng Krachan National Park in April 2014 after being detained for allegedly possessing wild honey.⁶ One of the accused was found guilty of failing to report Billy’s detention to the police and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, but was subsequently released on bail.

Refugees’ and migrants’ rights

On 22 September, a regulation to establish a screening mechanism to grant protected status to asylum seekers seeking protection from persecution came into force. Human rights organizations raised concerns about the exclusion of migrant workers from Myanmar, Laos, Viet Nam and Cambodia from accessing protection and about provisions that allow the authorities to deny protection on “national security” grounds without being required to explain why the decision was made.

Irregular migrants, including asylum seekers, were arbitrarily and indefinitely detained in squalid immigration detention centres. Two ethnic Uyghur men, Aziz Abdullah and Mattohti Mattursun, died in the capital Bangkok’s Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center in February and April respectively. They were among a group of around 50 Uyghurs from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region who had been detained since they arrived in Thailand in 2014.

On 13 April, Vietnamese Youtuber Đường Văn Thái disappeared from his residence in Bangkok in circumstances that suggested the involvement of Viet Nam state agents. He was subsequently detained in Viet Nam and charged with “disseminating propaganda against the state”.

In an ongoing pattern of targeting individuals affiliated with the network of human rights defenders from Laos, on 17 May, UNHCR-recognized refugee Bounsuan Kitiyano was shot dead by an unidentified gunman in Ubon Ratchathani province in north-east Thailand.⁷

On 7 July, authorities arrested Thol Samnang, a Cambodian political activist and affiliate of the Candlelight Party. Samnang was on his way to apply for refugee status at UNHCR’s office in Bangkok at the time of his arrest.

LGBTI people’s rights

On 21 December, Thai lawmakers debated a package of bills to legalize same-sex marriages.⁸ The Marriage Equality Bill received resounding support in the House of Representatives and started the process of multiple readings and stages of approval before it may become law.

Impunity

There was still no accountability for the deaths in 2004 of 85 people who were shot or died after being arrested during protests to demand the release of six Malay Muslim men from Tak Bai Police Station in Narathiwat province, one of Thailand’s southern border provinces.⁹