Journalists face jail in Thailand for people-smuggler report

[MGP]

Chutima Sidasathian ‏@OiChutima

Ready for court. Here we go. pic.twitter.com/0jt0Kh5CHD

Chutima Sidasathian ‏@OiChutima

Alan Morison today. pic.twitter.com/KoeksvCXdJ

[Loles]

And who is surprised now ? May be only the tourist .

[phuketrichard]

seems to me that he ( or his wife) reported a reuters story with out checking it out on his own.

A Reuters investigation, based on interviews with people smugglers and more than two dozen survivors of boat voyages, reveals how some Thai naval security forces work systematically with smugglers

Regardless of what is true or not, he should have done due dliigence before he placed it on his site.

Did he say it was a Reuters story he was quoting?

Edited April 17, 2014 by phuketrichard

[belg]

so you report on it, and you will get jail time

but the people responsible, are free of any charges

shoot the messenger, TIT

[marko kok prong]

I fear they will be found guilty,as if not this will cause a "loss of face' for the navy,and we all know that is the worse possible thing that can happen here.

[marko kok prong]

I'd like to know just what the Aust embassy is doing to help it's citizen? wait there needs to be political will for that, is this being reported in Aust news?

I should imagine what they usually do -nothing.

[tomhell]

Dear Chutima Sidasathian and Alan Morison,

thanks for your courage. It´s really a shame that you face prison time.

Who protects the navy? Is there any state comission who has the authority to inspect what´s goning on?

Is this topic considered important in thai public? (I know a naive question)

Best wishes for you

Tom

Tom

[otherstuff1957]

The defamation laws in Thailand are shockingly oppressive. All of us, regardless of our political leanings, should call out for them to be reformed.

[tingtongteesood]

This idiocy is brought to you courtesy of the Royal Thailand Navy which also allowed its personnel to engage in freelance work on behalf of the PDRC.

The RTN is not accountable to the people of Thailand and has repeatedly stated that it does not answer to a civilian government. This is what Suthep and his supporters are part of.

How utterly astonishing that you try and twist this story around to a PDRC/Suthep slag match. With posts like that you lose bucket loads of street cred at a time. It is because of posts of the nature displayed above that people on this site continually refer to the concept of 'must have been paid to post', an angle many people resort to when the contents of a post are so unbelievably trollish in nature. Shame on you GK.

It is really absurd that you try and turn this ityo something it's not. Did the OP mention the PDRC at all ? Suthep ? Abhisit ? No, NO and NO !! Were they even hinted at ? NO ! Does this article have anything to do with politics ? Not really. So what the hell is your problem ?!

Got a bad case of Thaksinbrainwashedsheepleitis me thinks, your case is one of the most chronic I haave ever seen !!!

[rickirs]

Morison and Sidasathian are being sued for libel over one paragraph from a Reuters report which suggested the Thai Navy were implicated in the trafficking of Rohingya. It has been presented that Morrison and Sidasathian merely quote the investigation by Reuters on the trafficking Muslim Rohingya asylum-seekers who had fled Myanmar. Obviously, just the dissemination of another reporter's investigation is news reporting and questionable as being liblious.

Where the libel act comes in is perhaps due to Morison and Sidasathian's own investigations and sharing their personal contacts (brokers and agents) with Rueters who explained in detail links to the military and how the persecuted people were smuggled to Malaysia. They also assisted on follow up stories. But maybe they did not caveot their stories sufficiently and singled out the Navy for blame over the trafficing scandal. To wit Rueters defended its story, "We wish to emphasize that Reuters' story does not single out the Thai Royal Navy, but explores the responsibility of all involved in patrolling the Thai seas and provides their perspectives." (my emphasis). Morison and Sidasathian may not have been so careful given their passion on the subject.

Thailand does seems to be overprotective of any accusations of impropierty against its institutions, especially with the military that seems to enjoy impunity for any of its actions. There is very little within the Thai governmental system that appears able to hold the military accountable for corruption other than the military itself. So, unfortunately at personal cost to Morison and Sidasathian, the libel charge should be publically examined and tried. There is a greater good for Thailand to lift the veil of secrecy on behavior of all its institutions.

[Morakot]

The defamation laws in Thailand are shockingly oppressive. All of us, regardless of our political leanings, should call out for them to be reformed.

For further reading see:

David Streckfuss 2010 Truth on Trial in Thailand: Defamation, Treason, and Lèse-Majesté (Rethinking Southeast Asia) New York: Routledge.

[JohnThailandJohn]

For those Google challenged here is the Reuters story (at least the online version)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/17/us-myanmar-exodus-specialreport-idUSBRE96G02520130717

What I find interesting is that there are Reuters journalists, based in Bangkok, that are named in the article yet the Thai Navy did not go after them.

As stated earlier, the Reuters story gets the Navy's side in response to what a smuggler claims. Do we know if the other article included the Navy denial or if when accusing the Thai Navy that they attributed the accusation to a smuggler?

[northernjohn]

Shouldn't the military first PROVE that they are not implicated in people smuggling before they gag reporters?0

They put reporters in prison and that will just put a huge international focus on the situation and instigate investigations that may actually one day PROVE the reporters were right.

Sad to say but in Thailand even if it is true you can still be tried and found guilty because you are guilty of a very badly written law.

[northernjohn]

This idiocy is brought to you courtesy of the Royal Thailand Navy which also allowed its personnel to engage in freelance work on behalf of the PDRC.

The RTN is not accountable to the people of Thailand and has repeatedly stated that it does not answer to a civilian government. This is what Suthep and his supporters are part of.

As usual your inane remarks.

See my previous post.

It will explain it to you. Can't remember if I used all four letter words or not. If not sorry about that.

Edited April 17, 2014 by northernjohn

[JohnThailandJohn]

Found a couple articles written by this guy from last year on this topic, one where he repeats NAVY abuse allegations from ABC Australia and one were he accuses Thai Immigration Officials of selling people. Neither mentions the Reuters article but one is from June 2013 when it is claimed the article he is in trouble for was wrote.

The articles can be found using this google search links June 2013 and a story here http://www.business-humanrights.org/Links/Repository/1022806/link_page_view

[JohnThailandJohn]

seems to me that he ( or his wife) reported a reuters story with out checking it out on his own.

A Reuters investigation, based on interviews with people smugglers and more than two dozen survivors of boat voyages, reveals how some Thai naval security forces work systematically with smugglers

Regardless of what is true or not, he should have done due dliigence before he placed it on his site.

Did he say it was a Reuters story he was quoting?

If you look more at the reports of this, they did not copy the Reuters story but only took 1 Paragraph from the Reuters story. It is interesting to note that Reuters has not defended these reporters but instead has only responded by saying:

Reuters Barb Burg, Reuters' global head of communications: ''Our story was fair and balanced and Reuters has not been accused of criminal libel.''

I assume the paragraph they copied was not the one where Police and Navy denied the allegations and and the Thai Foreign Ministry stated there has been no evidence of such things in years.

While Thai laws may need to be updated, it doesn't mean these reporters didn't play loose with facts. The charges also doesn't mean they did what they are accused of but the more I look into this the more it looks like these reporters have not been fair in their coverage and not in communicating what they did because copying one paragraph from an article is much different than copying an article with that includes both sides. They also appear to want to be egging the Navy on to possibly get publicity from this. Again, doesn't mean they did wrong in the article in question but important to remember there are always at least two sides to a story like and reporters should always attempt to get them before reporting.

Edited April 17, 2014 by JohnThailandJohn

[kkerry]

I'd like to know just what the Aust embassy is doing to help it's citizen? wait there needs to be political will for that, is this being reported in Aust news?

I should imagine what they usually do -nothing.

Yes, it has been reported in the Australian news, interviews with both journalists on Australian tv were broadcast yesterday.

The Australian Embassy will be working behind the scenes using diplomacy. Jumping up and down yelling and complaining in the media only gets you so far, and maybe does more harm than good at times in Thailand.

[webfact]

UPDATE:

Thailand charges reporters over Pulitzer-winning article

BANGKOK, April 17, 2014 (AFP) - Two journalists, including an Australian editor, were ordered Thursday to stand trial in Thailand on defamation charges linked to a Pulitzer Prize-winning article alleging Thai military involvement in people smuggling.

Full story: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/719593-thailand-charges-reporters-over-pulitzer-winning-article/

[Evilbaz]

IIRC "Phuketwan" was up for sale prior to this story being published.

It was a popular read for expats because of Mr. Morison's acerbic attacks on contributors to the "Comments" sections.

[Evilbaz]

No delete option

Edited April 17, 2014 by Evilbaz

[Puwa]

This reminds me of the case of Supinya Klangnarong, who was sued for 400 million baht by Shin Corp for a newspaper article observing that Shincorp shares rose after T became PM. She was in the courts for several years and finally the case was dismissed. She's now a commissioner for the national broadcast and telecoms commission.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supinya_Klangnarong

http://www.article19.org/pdfs/cases/thai-defamation.pdf

Edited April 17, 2014 by Puwa

[benny1616]

This idiocy is brought to you courtesy of the Royal Thailand Navy which also allowed its personnel to engage in freelance work on behalf of the PDRC.

The RTN is not accountable to the people of Thailand and has repeatedly stated that it does not answer to a civilian government. This is what Suthep and his supporters are part of.

yes, exactly this is was suthep and his party stand for.

[HerbalEd]

Amazing Thailand. The western reporters of this story get the Pulitzer and the Thai reporter gets thrown in jail.

[zazezo]

Are they "alleging Thai military links to people-smuggling" without anything to back it up? Anybody have a link to the original story?

Under the thai defamation law no proof, no matter how uneniable, matters at all. What DOES matter is that

a "big wheel" lost face as the result of some lowly smart-ass daring to speak the truth.

[JohnThailandJohn]

Are they "alleging Thai military links to people-smuggling" without anything to back it up? Anybody have a link to the original story?

Under the thai defamation law no proof, no matter how uneniable, matters at all. What DOES matter is that

a "big wheel" lost face as the result of some lowly smart-ass daring to speak the truth.

You should actually read the Thai law. For a criminal charge their needs to be intent to cause defamation and it cannot even be through negligence but needs actual intent. If it was negligent then it would has to be a civil case and not criminal. By the way, these folks are charged with knowingly printing false information.

[englishoak]

Just another example of how Mickey Mouse the law and system here is.

Best wishes for these heroes of free speech and hoping the case gets thrown out as it should.

This is being watched by the international community and there have been calls for dropping of these charges before, If it dosnt go well then watch international pressure being brought to bare.

What cannot go on forever simply will not.