Australian journalist Alan Morison wrote to his father to let him know he could not make it back to Australia for his birthday last year because he was a prisoner in Thailand. “My passport has been seized because I am being accused by the Royal Thai Navy of criminal defamation,” he wrote.
Nadine Cresswell-Myatt in Politics
3 days ago | 0 Comments | Report
It is not the kind of letter that one normally gets on one’s 91st birthday and some thought the shock might be enough to kill an elderly parent. But some words just have to be said or indeed written.
Australian journalist Alan Morison wrote to his father to let him know he could not make it back to Australia for his birthday last year because he was a prisoner in Thailand.
“My passport has been seized because I am being accused by the Royal Thai Navy of criminal defamation,” he wrote.
Last year, the Royal Thai Navy brought charges of criminal defamation and computer crimes against Mr Morison, who has lived in Thailand for several years, over a story published on Mr Morison’s Phuketwan website. The website has won a number of human rights awards including ‘Best Investigative Report on Human Rights’ from the South China Morning Post in 2009.
The key paragraph causing this reaction was about abuses against ethnic Rohingya Muslim migrants who had fled persecution in Myanmar.
Ironically the offending paragraph was not in fact written by Mr Morison or his colleague Ms Chutima but rather taken from a Reuters news agency report.
Reuters, an international agency won a Pulitzer prize for its coverage of the Rohingya. There has been no action against the international agency but the Navy have set their sights on Mr Morison and Ms Chutima.
Or as Mr Morison told his father, “probably because we are a very small organisation and Reuters is a large one.”
According to a translation of the ruling published in Phuketwan the concern was over the fact that “the reputation of the Royal Thai Navy was damaged and made people look down on the navy.”
“The Thai navy’s heavy-handed response to news reports of mistreatment of migrants shows a startling disregard for rights abuses,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
The laying of these charges against the journalists has been condemned by the United Nations and support has poured in from organisations around the world including Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders. Even national newspapers in Thailand, including The Bangkok Post and The Nation, have added their indignant voices.
There is increasing criticism of Thailand’s defamation laws that many believe are increasingly being used to silence criticism in Thailand.
Mr Morison, a former senior editor of The Age, told Fairfax Media he doubts whether he and Ms Chutima will get a fair trial when the charges are heard in a Phuket in July this year.
After months of campaigning to have his passport returned by the Thai Government Mr Morison was allowed home to Australia to visit his ailing father in February this year.
A local Melbourne Thai suggested, through an intermediary source, that if Mr Morison was lucky enough to be in Australia with his passport then he would be wise to stay put rather than return to Thailand and face a tilted judicial system that might well rule again him with a hefty jail sentence.
But Mr Morison, who was also once editor of the Melbourne Age, said that he was returning for reasons of principle including his belief in freedom of the press.
The 67 year old has already spent five hours in a small prison cell crowded with 90 prisoners while his supporters raised bail for Ms Chutima and himself.
“It wasn’t hell but it wasn’t far off,” he said.
Mr Morison and his colleague Ms Chutima could face up to 7 years in jail.
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Nadine Cresswell-Myatt, Australia
Writer with over 20 years industry experience writing for newspapers, magazines and online sites. Specialties: writing local and overseas travel stories, food writing, book and film reviewing, academic writing.
