Thailand: Defamation cases against human rights defenders Nan Win and Sutharee Wannasiri dismissed

10/06/2020

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On June 8, 2020, the Criminal Court in Bangkok found Mr. Nan Win and Ms. Sutharee Wannasiri not guilty of defamation and dismissed the cases brought against them by Thai poultry company Thammakaset. Both human rights defenders had conducted advocacy highlighting alleged labour rights violations by Thammakaset. The company considered their work defamatory. The Court, however, considered the information provided by Nan Win and Sutharee Wannasiri to be legitimate criticism and fair comment that did not constitute defamation.

Since late 2018, FIDH, through its Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, advocated for the case against the two defenders to be dismissed and for Thammakaset to end their harassment. FIDH welcomes the dismissal of these charges aimed at silencing the voice of human rights defenders.

Since 2016, Thammakaset has filed at least 38 criminal and civil cases against 22 defendants, including human rights defenders, workers, and a journalist, for alleged defamation, in what UN human rights experts condemned in March 2020 as a “continued misuse of judicial processes” to harass and silence human rights defenders.

Find out more by visiting Thammakaset Watch, a web page regularly updated by FIDH to document the ongoing judicial harassment to which Thammakaset is subjecting human rights defenders and workers.