Thai reporter Suchanee Cloitre was sentenced to two years in prison for defamation on Tuesday due to a tweet about an agrifood giant. Released on bail, she announced that she would appeal. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounces an unfair conviction and calls on the Thai courts to drop all charges in the second instance.
In Thailand, a tweet can be worth two years in prison. Thai journalist Suchanee Cloitre has had bitter experience of this: in a defamation lawsuit against the food giant Thammakaset, the provincial court in Lop Buri (central Thailand) found him guilty in a judgment rendered Tuesday, December 24 and sentenced her to the maximum penalty provided for this reason. The reporter announced that she would appeal.
The case dates back to 2016. In that year, the Thai government ordered Thammakaset to pay compensation to 14 migrant workers exploited in poultry farms. A decision that Sucheena Cloitre, then attached to the channel Voice TV , relayed in a tweet. The employees having been forced to work 20 hours a day without being paid, Suchanee Cloitre dares to describe the facts as ” slavery “.
Believing that this tweet compromises his interests, the group then decides to sue the reporter. A fight similar to that of David against Goliath, and for which justice has clearly chosen the side of the giant. More than three years after the facts, the journalist was sentenced to a heavy penalty: two years in prison, to which are added the 75,000 baths (2,250 euros, or six months’ median salary in Thailand) that she had to pay for obtain bail and not be behind bars.
Relentless repression
“We call on the judges of Lop Buri’s court to regain some semblance of credibility by dropping the absurd charges against Suchanee Cloitre ,” said Daniel Bastard, manager of RSF’s Asia-Pacific office. This unfair condemnation is the sign of a justice which despises the free exercise of journalism and takes the side of the powerful. She seems to have only one goal: to intimidate the whole profession. ”
Since the last military coup in 2014, the ruling junta in Bangkok has implemented a relentless system of repression against press freedom. Particularly severe, defamation laws are regularly used to silence journalists.
The legislative elections which finally took place in March 2019 were marred by serious attacks on pluralism. RSF had thus denounced outright censorship , during the election campaign, of the channel Voice TV , for which Suchanee Cloitre worked.
Thailand is 136th out of 180 countries in the 2019 World Press Freedom Index by RSF.
Copyright ©2016, Reporters Without Borders. Used with the permission of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), CS 90247 75083 Paris Cedex 02 https://rsf.org
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