Thai activist Sutharee Wannasiri knew the poultry company had violated labor laws. She took to Twitter in 2017 to share a video that contained an interview with an employee who said he had to work day and night and didn’t have a day off.
The poultry group hit back, suing Ms Sutharee for defamation and defamation. Although a court found her not guilty in 2020, the company wasn’t finished yet.
While the case was pending, her colleague at her human rights organization campaigned for Ms Sutharee on Twitter and Facebook. She, too, was eventually charged with defamation and slander. Now colleague Puttanee Kangkun faces up to 42 years in prison while awaiting verdict.
The cases illustrate what often happens in Thailand when companies and government officials are unhappy with public criticism. A defamation charge follows, in which critics are accused of spreading falsehoods and the defendants find themselves locked in lengthy legal battles and threatened jail time.
Powerful figures, knowing they can use the courts to intimidate, harass and punish critics, have exploited what the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights has termed “judicial harassment” in Thailand.
Despite being found guilty of labor rights abuses, the Thammakaset poultry company has continued to take its critics to court: first those who spoke out about the labor rights abuses and later those who complained about the measures the company took to silence them bring people.
Since 2016, Thammakaset has filed 39 lawsuits, mostly criminal defamation, against 23 individuals: migrant workers, human rights defenders and journalists. It lost all but one, which was later overturned on appeal.
Three are still pending.
In addition to Ms. Puttanee, Thammakaset is also suing Angkhana Neelapaijit, a former national human rights commissioner in Thailand, and Thanaporn Saleephol, a European Union spokesman in Thailand.
All three women took to social media to criticize Thammakaset’s lawsuits. All three are accused of slander and defamation; they are tried out together.
Many countries in Southeast Asia have criminal defamation laws, but Thailand stands out. According to Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch, citizens are “just a lot more aggressive” about using the law to “drag people into legal processes that are slow and expensive.”‘S Asia department.
In addition to the Criminal Defamation Act, there is the Computer Crimes Act, which criminalizes uploading ‘false’ information which ‘may cause harm to the public’. Another law protecting the Thai monarchy from criticism allows ordinary Thais to file complaints about violations.
A UK-based rights watchdog, ARTICLE 19cited statistics from the Thai judicial authorities showing that prosecutors and private parties have filed more than 25,000 criminal cases for defamation since 2015.
“Business and political elites find this very effective because the courts are risk-averse; They accept almost any case that doesn’t make sense on the face of it,” Robertson said.
Amid calls to tackle rampant abuses of the courts, the Thai government amended its Code of Criminal Procedure in 2018 to make it easier to dismiss cases against defendants who can argue that they are acting in the public interest. But lawyers say little has changed.
Sor Rattanamanee Polkla, the attorney representing Ms Puttanee, Ms Angkhana and Ms Thanaporn, said she had filed a motion to dismiss the proceedings under that provision, but the court denied her motion.
Thammakaset’s complaint against the three women focuses on the 2018 video shared by Ms. Sutharee, created by strengthen rights. Ms. Puttanee works for the organization; Ms. Sutharee and Ms. Thanaporn both did.
In their Twitter and Facebook posts, Ms Puttanee, Ms Angkhana and Ms Thanaporn expressed their solidarity with the activists who were being persecuted by Thammakaset. Her posts linked to a Fortify Rights press release and a joint statement with other human rights organizations, which ultimately linked to the video.
In his complaint, Thammakaset cited the video, which contains an interview with a worker, in which he talks about working long hours and having his passport withheld.
In 2016, Thai authorities ruled that Thammakaset had failed to pay minimum wages, overtime wages or give workers sufficient vacation time. In 2019, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court order requiring the company to pay approximately $50,000 to a group of 14 employees who filed the labor lawsuit.
During a hearing for the three women in March, Chanchai Pheamphon, the owner of Thammakaset, told the judge he had already “paid his dues” to the workers but the online criticism continued to damage his company and his reputation.
He said his children asked him if the family’s money came “from human trafficking, from the sale of slaves.”
“How should a father feel when his children ask him that?” Mr. Chanchai said, his voice rising. “I have to use my right to fight. But using my rights is perceived as a threat and the law is used to silence them.”
Mr. Chanchai told the court that no one wanted to do business with him anymore. But in March, two human rights groups released an investigation showing that after Thammakaset decertified its poultry farms in 2016, a new poultry company called Srabua was set up by a man who shared the same address as Mr Chanchai.
Mr. Chanchai denied any knowledge of Srabua.
When asked by a New York Times reporter if he planned to file further lawsuits against critics of the company, Mr. Chanchai said, “You are a reporter for a major news outlet. If someone says you’re a drug dealer, will you fight back?”
According to the Thai Human Rights Lawyers Association, decriminalizing defamation cases could have saved Thai taxpayers $3.45 million in 2016-2018. Defendants in civil lawsuits must also expect to pay large sums out of their own pockets.
During the March hearing, Ms. Puttanee, 52, brought a backpack full of clothes to court. The way from her home to the court takes two hours. That’s why every time she attends a hearing, she books a hotel at her own expense.
She said she expects the case to drag on for four years if Thammakaset decides to take his arguments all the way to the Supreme Court. Still, Ms. Puttanee considers herself fortunate: she lives in a community that has grown around her, and her attorney is a volunteer.
“But I still see that as intimidating,” she said.
During the hearing, Mr. Chanchai explained how Ms. Puttanee’s Twitter posts had defamed his company. His account lasted five hours; Ms. Puttanee dozed off during his testimony.
Ms. Angkhana, the former Human Rights Commissioner, is known in Thailand for her husband Somchai Neelapaijit, a human rights lawyer who disappeared in 2004 and whose fate remains unknown.
She said the current lawsuit has taken a toll on her mental health.
“It’s a repeated trauma when someone attacks you when you haven’t done anything wrong,” said Ms. Angkhana, 67. “That’s the real goal of the company — to make you feel powerless.”
Ms Thanaporn, 29, said it was ironic to become a victim of the very process she denounced, simply by sharing online her support for her fellow activists.
“The fact that I can be sued for this speaks for itself,” she said.
