Court acquits two journalists
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TWO JOURNALISTS from the Phuketwan news-site were acquitted yesterday in a defamation case over a 2013 report implicating the Navy of involvement in the trafficking of Rohingya.
The Phuket-based journalists, Alan Morison and Chutima Sidasathian, were charged with defamation and violating the Computer Crimes Act over the July 2013 report, in which they quoted a Reuters news agency story that said Navy officials might be involved in trafficking of boat people.
The court said Reuters was a reliable international news agency and the content of the report could be verified. The journalists were not guilty of defamation for reporting the information for public interest, according to the verdict.
The information they put into the computer system was not false and it neither affected national security, nor provoked public panic, the court ruled, so the pair did not breach the computer law either.
As for the Navy’s concern, the term “naval forces” as used in the report might imply marine agencies but it might also be understood as the Royal Thai Navy. The two journalists testified in court earlier that the term “naval forces” could be any officials who work for marine agencies, not specifically the Royal Thai Navy.
Chutima told reporters after the verdict that she and her Australian colleague, Morison, were satisfied with the court judgement. She said Thai authorities always misuse the Computer Crimes Act to gag freedom of expression. The computer law should not be used along with criminal defamation to limit press freedom, she said.
Commander Thanom Lansai, a representative of the Navy at the court, said the Navy wanted to end the case and would not seek an appeal to the upper court. “But it depends on the public prosecutor to consider if they will appeal the verdict to the appeal court,” he said.
The case between the Navy and the two journalists caused controversy as the Navy insisted on continuing the trial despite pleas from international and domestic human rights groups to drop it.
In its report on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) this year and last year, the United States warned that prosecuting journalists for exposing traffickers undermined efforts to identify and assist victims and apprehend traffickers. The US State Department placed Thailand at the lowest status in the TIP report for another year.
Yesterday’s acquittal of the two journalists was a welcome move for freedom of expression, but the two should never have had to stand trial in the first place, Amnesty International said.
“The acquittal of these two journalists is a positive decision,” said Josef Benedict, Amnesty International’s South East Asia campaigns director.
