Thailand: New ICJ report highlights intensified online restrictions   

Thailand: New ICJ report highlights intensified online restrictions   

The Thai authorities should immediately reform laws, policies and practices that have led to increasing violations of human rights in the digital sphere, the ICJ said in a new report launched today.

The 75-page report, Dictating the Internet: Curtailing Free Expression and Information Online in Thailand, documents a range of laws that does not comply with international human rights law and standards. These laws contain vague and overbroad provisions, wrongly criminalize free expression or prescribe disproportionately harsh penalties, and are applied without independent oversight mechanisms.

These arbitrary restrictions have intensified in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and pro-democracy protests.

“The Thai authorities have continued their systematic abuse of existing and new deficient laws to curtail not only the right to freedom of expression, opinion and information online, but also the rights to peaceful assembly, health and other rights,” said Sam Zarifi, ICJ’s Secretary General.

The Thai authorities have also pressured and co-opted big technological companies to improperly restrict or block content on their platforms, through court-enforced demands and the filing of criminal complaints for failing to comply.

The report further documents how the Thai authorities have failed to adequately protect individuals against the human rights abuses of private actors, who include companies harassing its critics through legal processes and perpetrators of online speech inciting discrimination, hostility or violence.

The report provides specific recommendations to the Thai authorities and technological companies in the communications sector to safeguard in law and practice the rights to expression, opinion and information online as well as offline. These recommendations call for the authorities to, among other recommendations:

  • Repeal or substantially amend criminal law provisions that criminalize or unduly restrict human rights online, and review existing laws or develop legislation to protect against SLAPP lawsuits and the incitement of discrimination, hostility or violence;
  • Cease harassment and persecution of all individuals for merely exercising their human rights online;
  • Refrain from future charges and drop all existing charges against individuals and social media companies facing prosecution for alleged violations of non-human rights compliant laws, and immediately release all held in pre-trial detention or imprisoned on conviction for such cases; and
  • Refrain from restricting or blocking online content unless the decision to block has been undertaken following a full analysis applying international human rights law and standards, and authorized pursuant to an order by an independent and impartial judicial authority.

“The Thai authorities must act urgently to stem this deteriorating trend of human rights violations and abuses in the digital space, by repealing or substantially amending its laws, policies and practices in line with Thailand’s international legal obligations,” added Zarifi.

The report follows on from the ICJ’s December 2019 regional report entitled Dictating the Internet: Curtailing Free Expression, Opinion and Information Online in Southeast Asia assessing non-human rights compliant legal frameworks and case studies across Southeast Asia, including Thailand.

Report Launch

The report will be launched on 22 June 2021. The launch includes a panel discussion, which draws together human rights defenders, diplomats, journalists, lawyers and civil society to discuss the increasing attacks on freedom of expression and information online in Thailand through non-human rights compliant laws and practices.

The discussion will include as panelists:

  • Sam Zarifi, Secretary General, International Commission of Jurists;
  • Poonsuk Poonsukcharoen, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR); and
  • Chavarong Limpattamapanee, Chairman, National Press Council, Thailand.

Download

The full report is available in English here and in Thai here. The executive summary of the report is available in English and Thai. (PDF)

Contact

Sam Zarifi, ICJ Secretary General, e: asiapacific@icj.org, t: +66-62-702-6369

See also

ICJ, ‘Southeast Asia: ICJ launches report on increasing restrictions on online speech’, 11 December 2019

ICJ, ‘Vietnam: authorities must act to safeguard rights online and end harassment of those expressing themselves – ICJ new report’, 9 December 2020

Cambodia: Stop silencing critical commentary on COVID-19 

Cambodia: Stop silencing critical commentary on COVID-19 

The ICJ joined other international human rights organisations to call on the Cambodian government to immediately stop its assault on freedom of expression in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In recent months, the government has warned against public criticism of its actions, prevented independent journalists from reporting on the pandemic, prosecuted individuals for criticising the inoculation campaign, and threatened journalists and social media users with legal actions on the spurious grounds of provoking “turmoil in society.

While Cambodia was spared from high numbers of severe COVID-19 cases in 2020, beginning in February 2021 there has been a spike in cases to which the government responded with disproportionate and unnecessary measures in violation of Cambodia’s international human rights obligations. This includes a campaign against freedom of expression that further constricts media freedom and promotes fear and self-censorship in the country. These measures serve to undermine, not advance, efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The Cambodian authorities placed a de facto ban on independent reporting in Phnom Penh’s red zones—areas deemed to be high risk for COVID-19 transmission. On 3 May 2021, the Ministry of Information announced that only state media or journalists invited by the government would be permitted to report from red zones. The next day, the Ministry of Information issued a letter warning journalists not to disseminate information that could “provoke turmoil in society” and threatening legal action against those who disobey. The letter followed viral livestream footage from multiple Facebook news outlets of long queues of COVID-19 patients outside government treatment centres.

The government’s campaign to silence critical commentary has extended beyond journalists to ordinary people, in a manner incompatible with international human rights standards.

In a press release dated 1 May 2021, the Government Spokesperson Unit demanded the immediate cessation of social media posts intended to “provoke and create chaos” in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, referring to such posts as “acts of attack” that must be punished. The press release concluded by praising the efforts of government officials to curb the spread of COVID-19 but did not provide any legal justification for imposing these possible restrictions on the right to freedom of expression.

On 30 April 2021, Kandal provincial authorities warned farmers in Sa’ang district not to post images of vegetables spoiling in their fields due to the closure of markets, stating that such communications are bad for morale. One farmer, Tai Song, was pressured by the provincial authorities to sign a document agreeing not to post such content again after he shared a photo on Facebook showing his vegetables rotting and stating that he had to clear and throw away his crops.

The Cambodian authorities have arrested dozens of individuals for expressing critical opinions about the government’s COVID-19 response, including at least six individuals for their criticism of the government’s vaccination campaign. One Chinese journalist, Shen Kaidong, was subsequently deported for publishing a story deemed ‘fake news’ in which multiple Chinese nationals reported receiving a text offering them the Sinopharm vaccine for a service fee.

Authorities have also prosecuted at least three individuals—Korng Sambath, Nov Kloem, and Pann Sophy—for posting TikTok videos criticising the use of Chinese-made vaccines under the new, overly broad and vague Law on Measures to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19 and other Serious, Dangerous and Contagious Diseases (the COVID-19 Law).

These actions are consistent with the government’s systematic and relentless crackdown on freedom of expression and information spanning far beyond the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This latest surge contributes to the government’s broader efforts to silence all critical voices in Cambodia.

The right to freedom of expression is protected by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Cambodia acceded in 1992, and by Article 41 of Cambodia’s Constitution.

Protecting public health is the grounds on which the government is purporting to restrict freedom of expression. While there is a legitimate need to counter the spread of misinformation online to protect public health during a pandemic, this objective must be provided by a clear and accessible law and pursued using the least intrusive means, rather than unnecessary and disproportionate measures like unwarranted arrests, detentions, and criminal prosecutions.

In its General Comment 34, the UN Human Rights Committee emphasised the essential role of the media in informing the public and stated that “in circumstances of public debate concerning public figures … the value placed [on] uninhibited expression is particularly high.” A 2017 Joint Declaration of four independent experts on freedom of expression stressed that “general prohibitions on the dissemination of information based on vague and ambiguous ideas” are incompatible with international human rights standards.

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To read the full statement with a list of co-signatories, click here.

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