The journalist and community advocate Chutima Sidasathian has been acquitted of three charges of criminal defamation in a closely watched case brought by a local mayor in Nakhon Ratchasima.
The Nakhon Ratchasima Provincial Court delivered its ruling on Wednesday in what rights activists said was another in a long line of “Slapp” — Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation — cases filed in Thailand.
The official brought the case against Ms Chutima after she exposed misappropriation and other irregularities in microcredit lending of money from the Village Fund programme through the state-owned Government Savings Bank (GSB) in Facebook posts in February and April 2022.
Thanonthorn Kaveekitrattana, the Banlang sub-district mayor named in the reports, is facing criminal charges of misappropriation of funds based on Ms Chutima's investigation.
Her reports noted that some residents of local communities were forced to repay loans of money that they never saw because it had been diverted into the pockets of local officials and others.
The court said that Ms Chutima was entitled to make genuine criticism of local administrators in the public interest. The National Human Rights Commission earlier categorised the case as a Slapp.
Ms Chutima expressed relief and gratitude to her supporters in a post on X. “But I still have six more criminal defamation charges to fight for freedom of expression in Thailand,” she added.
She and her legal team plan to ask prosecutors on Friday to drop the remaining six cases.
Ms Chutima is no stranger to Slapp cases. She prevailed in a high-profile case brought against her and a colleague a decade ago by the Royal Thai Navy.
The navy filed criminal defamation and computer crime complaints in 2013 against the news website Phuketwan over a report implicating navy personnel in trafficking of Rohingya refugees.
The specific reference was contained in a quotation from a Reuters investigative news report that later won a Pulitzer Prize.
The Phuket Provincial Court in September 2015 dismissed the suits but Phuketwan eventually closed down. Ms Chutima said at the time that the pressure of constant legal harassment made it difficult for the news organisation to continue doing its job.