Three years ago last month, a two-person website published an article in the pair’s continuing coverage of human trafficking, and the roles of Thai agencies and <i>phuyai</i> in the sordid business. The fallout from that article spread ripples, now waves across the most basic civil rights and freedoms - press, speech, recourse.
The case of Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian, editor and reporter of the Phuketwan website, became known worldwide, after a Royal Thai Navy officer charged them with criminal defamation and violations of the Computer Crime Act. Pretty well everyone knows that the criminal court in Phuket served justice to Morison and Chutima - acquittal across the board. The case was so ludicrous and punitive that the prosecutor refused to show up for the second and final days. It was a huge victory for the forces of good.
Well, not so fast. Before the decision, the journalists had already announced they were giving up. The lawsuit changed their lives, sapped their energy, stole their morale. Phuketwan folded, both pulled up stakes.
That was 11 months ago. Fast forward, five and a half months, to February of 2016.
Three of the country’s leading civil rights activists called a modest press conference. They were ... well, they are:
Somchai Homla-or, lawyer, long-time rights fighter, commissioner of the Law Reform Commission, secretary-general of the Human Rights and Development Foundation, member of the National Human Rights Commission;
Anchana Heemmina, Muslim, southerner, founder of Duay Jai Group which she formed to help to rehabilitate and support torture victims and their families;
Porpen Khongkaconkiet, human rights lawyer, director of the Cross Cultural Foundation which has promoted and monitored human rights since 2002. She was recently appointed as Amnesty International’s representative in Thailand.
At the press conference, they handed out an extremely modest, shocking booklet called, simply and descriptively, Torture. It detailed the known facts and personal testimony of victims in 54 cases of mistreatment by state agents in the deep South. In most (but not all) cases, “state agent” is synonymously linked with the Royal Thai Army’s opaque Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc).
Repeat, that was in February. In May, at the second anniversary of the coup, Isoc submitted a complaint of criminal defamation against the three activists, in their role as co-editors of Torture.
Isoc may be lightproof, but its commander and its official spokesman are well known. The leader is (retired) Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha. Its public front is human Col Pramote Prom-in, who explained Isoc had hurt feelings and was forced to sue because there was no torture, ever. “You can’t say they were tortured [although] some of them may have sustained scratches or bruises while trying to escape arrest or raids.”
Then, a third case or, chronologically, a first case.
In 2011, raw army inductee Pvt Wichian Puaksom was beaten to death at the Krom Luang Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra Military Camp for being a poor-performing recruit. Twelve of his brave military superiors kicked, beat and pummelled him and walked away because they their duty was done. This is true.
The army paid blood money to Wichian’s family, but his niece Naritsarawan Kaewnopparat preferred justice. After learning the army had no intention of pursuing any serious charges, let alone murder, she took the story and photos to the Bangkok Post Sunday. Spectrum magazine laid out the horror story on July 24, 2011, with follow-up stories as the case never progressed.
Last week, police arrested Ms Naritsarawan on charges that were filed in February by the former Isoc commander in the deep South, who now claims she hurt his feelings by talking to this newspaper.
Like the navy commander who brought the Phuketwan case, Isoc and the former Isoc commander seem unlikely to win these cases in court. Which is the point.
The cases are not about justice, hurt feelings or regaining reputations lost to libel and slander. The criminal defamation law, misused for decades by politicians and phuyai, represents long, stressful punishment for the accused. Just last week, the three civil rights activists had to travel to Pattani to acknowledge the charges against them, while Ms Naritsarawan was led away, taken by police from her life in Bangkok to the South, to be formally charged.
The process itself, being forced to participate in such outdated legal proceedings, is the entire punishment sought by the litigious officers of Isoc. Some call it revenge.