Phuketwan journos await charge ruling

Phuketwan journos await charge ruling

Two Phuket-based online journalists will find out on Monday if they will be prosecuted for allegedly implicating the Royal Thai Navy in the human trafficking of Rohingya boat people.

Phuketwan editor Alan Morison and journalist Chutima Sidasathian told the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand on Wednesday that the Phuket Office of the Attorney General summoned them on Monday to hear if they would be formally prosecuted under the Computer Crimes Act (CCA) for an article they ran in July last year.

Phuketwan, a small online newspaper in Phuket, ran an excerpt from a Reuters article entitled "Thai Military Profiting From Trade in Boatpeople, Says Special Report" which the Royal Thai Navy felt had defamed them. It took the paper to court.

The two journalists said that if they are prosecuted, their main defence in court would be media freedom.

Mr Morison and Ms Chutima have played a central role over the past six years in exposing the exploitation and abuse of Rohingya detained along Thailand's Andaman coast.

If convicted they could face up to seven years in prison.

The two journalists said the navy's translation of their article was poor and misrepresented the content, which did not name the Royal Thai Navy as being involved in the smuggling of Rohingya asylum seekers.

Mr Morison said he did not have to defend the original story by Reuters as he found nothing wrong with exposing human trafficking syndicates. But if the navy felt strongly that the article damaged the reputation of their institution, they should file charges directly against the news agency where the story originated.

The navy filed complaints against Phuketwan last December — five months after the article went online. In the complaint they filed with police the navy described the story as a "problematic and false" report.

Reuters have stood by their report and did not receive any formal complaints. However, a few days after the reputable global news agency first ran the story on 17 July, they ran a story in which the Royal Thai Navy defended itself.

Mr Morison said Ms Chutima had tried to cross-check the story with the navy before publication, but there had not given any formal response.

Although the London-based Media Legal Defence Initiative and a team of lawyers from several groups in Thailand have offered financial and legal support if the lawsuit goes ahead, Mr Morison and Ms Chutima said they are not preparing any money to bail themselves out.

The Phuketwan journalists denied any wrongdoing and asked why the Royal Thai Navy did not take action against the Thai media outlets that also republished the same article from Reuters.

"It's beyond my grasp why a very big organisation [the navy] would punish a small organisation [Phuketwan]," said Mr Morison.

Mr Morison criticised the governments of all Asean countries for closing their eyes and ears to the exodus of the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim people from the Rakhine state of Myanmar.

Commenting on the Computer Crime Act, Ms Chutima said: "People have been criticising the controversial CCA. I only just found out personally how strict the law actually is, particularly regarding freedom of the press."

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