UN experts urge Thailand to ditch royal defamation laws

GENEVA: UN rights experts on Thursday urged Thailand to repeal its royal defamation laws, branding them vague and saying their widespread use had a chilling effect.

Thailand´s monarchy is protected from criticism by a lese-majeste law, with each offence punishable by up to 15 years in jail. Critics say the government has used the legislation to silence dissent.

“Under international law individuals have the right to criticise public officials, including a king, and to advocate peacefully for the reform of any public institution, including the monarchy,” the UN experts said in a joint statement.

“The Thai lese-majeste law is both harsh and vague, giving wide discretion to the authorities and the courts to define the offence broadly.”

The experts said the law had led to the detention, prosecution and punishment of more than 270 people since 2020, many of them handed long consecutive sentences by the courts.

The experts included the UN special rapporteurs on human rights defenders, freedom of assembly, judicial independence and the right to freedom of expression, and members of the working group on arbitrary detention.

UN rights experts are mandated by the Human Rights Council to report their findings in their given fields. They are independent figures and therefore do not speak for the United Nations itself.

The experts called for an immediate moratorium on prosecutions and imprisonments under the laws.