🚨 HUMAN RIGHTS ALERT 🚨 Prominent Thai opposition figure Thanathorn cleared of royal defamation charges

A victory for freedom of expression in Thailand! 🇹🇭

Today, the Thai Criminal Court dismissed the royal defamation and cybercrime charges against Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, founder of the progressive Future Forward movement and a key figure in Thailand’s pro-democracy struggle. The case came from his 2021 livestream criticizing the government’s mishandling of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and its unfair favouring of Siam Bioscience, a company owned by King Maha ​Vajiralongkorn.

📢 This ruling is clear: criticizing government failure is not lèse-majesté!

But one acquittal does not erase the bigger crisis:

Thailand has long weaponized defamation laws like Section 112, to silence, intimidate, and politically persecute progressive voices. In the last 6 years, the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) revealed that an alarming 291 individuals were charged under Section 112.

Time and time again, despite calls from civil society and UN human rights mechanisms, Thailand has failed to reform Section 112. Today, we welcome this ruling.

🔶 As Thailand heads into its UPR IV, where its human rights record will be reviewed before the UN and the world, we at Manushya challenge the Thai State to stop hiding repression behind the law, respect people’s freedom of speech, and comply with its international human rights obligations!

Freedom if speech is not a crime.

Criticizing government failures is not a crime.

#Abolish112! ✊

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#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings