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Scoop
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
UN Experts Urge Thailand To Drop Charges Against Pimsiri Petchnamrob And Other Pro-democracy Rights Defenders
GENEVA (11 July 2025) – UN experts* today expressed grave concern over ongoing judicial proceedings against Thai woman human rights defender Pimsiri Petchnamrob, calling on the Government to drop charges against her and other human rights defenders who participated in pro-democracy protests. ' Lèse-majesté laws, with their vague formulation and severe penalties, have no place in a democracy. Their widespread and punitive use to silence dissent, suppress public debate, and intimidate human rights defenders, political opponents, civil society activists, journalists, and ordinary citizens violates Thailand's international human rights obligations,' the experts said. 'We urge authorities to drop the charges against Petchnamrob and all others facing criminal prosecution on similar grounds immediately.' In November 2021, Pimsiri Petchnamrob wasindictedunder a total of ten charges, including under Section 112 (lèse-majesté), Section 116 (sedition), and Section 215 (participation in an illegal assembly) of the Criminal Code, for delivering a speech during a peaceful pro-democracy protest in November 2020. Petchnamrob is among at least five human rights defenders who were indicted for delivering speeches at the same protest. Her trial, which began in June 2025, is ongoing before the Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road, with two additional hearings scheduled in August, followed by the delivery of a judgment. The experts cited findings from a recent country visit report by the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls. The report noted that at least 470 women human rights defenders have been arrested and prosecuted under Sections 112 and 116 since 2020. 'These punitive charges often result in financial hardship, deteriorating health and significant challenges around family care,' they said. 'We reiterate our call to the Government of Thailand to revise and repeal lèse-majesté laws, which have a broad chilling effect on the exercise of rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, leading to a climate of fear and self-censorship,' the experts said. 'Public figures, including the highest political authorities, are legitimately subject to criticism.' 'Thailand must stop criminalising individuals who carry out the critical work of defending civic space and human rights,' they said. The experts have been in contact with the Government of Thailand on these matters, including to express concerns about prosecutions under Section 112 of the Criminal Code. Note: *The experts: Laura Nyirinkindi (Chair), Claudia Flores (Vice-Chair), Dorothy Estrada Tanck, Ivana Krstić, and Haina Lu, Working Group on discrimination against women and girls; Irene Khan, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression; Gina Romero, Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Special Rapporteurs/Independent Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Together, these experts are referred to as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual capacity and are independent fromany government or organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the UN or OHCHR.
Scoop
11-05-2025
- Scoop
Thailand: Protect Unaccompanied Refugee Children, Provide Legal Status, Prevent Detention
(Bangkok, May 8, 2025)—Following the disappearance of six Rohingya refugee children from a government-run shelter in Chiang Mai on March 21, 2025, the Government of Thailand should ensure that all refugee children in the country have access to legal status and human rights-based alternatives to detention, Fortify Rights said today. The disappearance of the children raises serious concerns about their safety, including the risk of human trafficking, and underscores the urgent need for robust child-protection measures, particularly for refugees fleeing atrocities in Myanmar. 'Looking the other way when refugee children disappear from a shelter is not the behavior of a rights-respecting government,' said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Fortify Rights. 'Thai authorities should urgently take bold, transparent steps to ensure that all refugee children are protected.' On December 20, 2024, Thai police in Mae Ping District, Chiang Mai, arrested a group of six unaccompanied Myanmar national Rohingya refugee children, aged between 14 and 17. In February 2025, Fortify Rights visited the six Rohingya refugee children and briefly spoke with two of them. At the time, the children were in Thai police custody awaiting trial—a reflection of Thailand's lack of safeguards for refugee children. The children told Fortify Rights that they had been transported to Thailand from their native Rakhine State in Myanmar by human smugglers who promised to take them onward to Malaysia. When the children reached Thailand, the smugglers demanded additional money to complete the journey. When neither the children nor their relatives in Myanmar met the smugglers' demands, the smugglers abandoned them—a common practice among human traffickers—and Thai police in Chiang Mai arrested and detained the children. The children told Fortify Rights how their families had paid more than 85 lakh Myanmar Kyat (approximately US$2,800) to a smuggler to facilitate their travel from Myanmar to Malaysia via Thailand. On March 5, 2025, the Chiang Mai Juvenile and Family Court found the Rohingya children guilty of 'illegal entry' under the 1979 Immigration Act and ordered their deportation back to Myanmar. On March 6, 2025, Fortify Rights sent a letter to Pol. Col. Surachai Aeampung, head of Chiang Mai Immigration Police, urging Thai authorities to stop the forced return of the Rohingya children to Myanmar and to release them from police custody. On March 7, the Thai authorities moved the children to the Chiang Mai Children and Family Shelter, a government-run care facility, in line with the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding on ending child immigration detention in Thailand. On March 11, Fortify Rights sent an urgent request to the Thai Senate Committee on Political Development People Participation, Human Rights, Right and Liberty and Consumer Protection. The letter asked the Committee to ensure the protection of the six Rohingya children. The Senate Committee investigated the situation by requesting expert advice from relevant government and United Nations authorities, and visiting the children at the Chiang Mai Children and Family Shelter. On March 21, all six children disappeared from the facility. Fortify Rights believes that the children may have been smuggled out of the shelter and through a well-established human smuggling and trafficking route to Malaysia. Nationwide figures quantifying the number of refugee children in institutional care facilities in Thailand are not publicly available. However, a recent rapid assessment commission by UNICEF and the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand found that in 2024, there were a total of 3,693 unaccompanied and separated children from Myanmar in 99 institutional care facilities in the three Northern Thai provinces of Tak, Chiang Mai, and Chiang Rai alone. The study also found an average of 37 unaccompanied and separated Myanmar children per care facility, representing a 38% increase on the same figures from 2019. Many Myanmar refugee children in Thailand risk languishing in institutional care facilities for years, according to Fortify Rights research. Refugee children in such situations lack access to protective legal status affording them basic rights or a pathway to freedom and security. Thailand is not party to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, so does not formally recognize refugee status as defined by the Convention. After almost four years of delay, in September 2023, Thailand launched a domestic system to identify and offer limited protections to refugees, known as the National Screening Mechanism (NSM). Refugees granted 'protected person' status under the NSM are protected from arrest and detention, and are also afforded other basic rights. According to an update provided by the Thai government to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees' executive committee, as of October 2024, only seven individuals had been granted protection under the NSM in the year following the establishment of the mechanism—a minuscule number compared to the more than 90,000 refugees, the vast majority of whom are Myanmar nationals, living in Thailand. Fortify Rights has consistently called for reforms of the NSM to ensure the widest possible coverage of protection for refugees in Thailand. In particular, Fortify Rights has raised concerns with the government that vulnerable groups of refugees, including the Rohingya, could be arbitrarily excluded from the NSM on broadly defined 'national security' grounds. A letter, seen by Fortify Rights, sent by Thailand's Office of the Council of State to the Office of the Secretary of the Cabinet, dated December 18, 2019, explicitly argued for the exclusion of Rohingya from Myanmar, Uyghurs from China, and North Koreans on national security grounds, a policy which appears to remain in place. Although national security can form grounds for measures taken against specific refugees, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights noted that restrictions on rights based on national security are justified only when there is 'force or a threat of force' against 'the existence of the nation or its integrity or political independence.' This presents a very high standard that should not be invoked to deny an individual protection or access to protection mechanisms without a reasonable basis grounded in evidence. In particular, such grounds should not be used to deny protected status to entire ethnic groups such as the Rohingya, Uyghurs, or North Koreans. Article 22 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), to which Thailand is a state party, guarantees that child refugees, whether accompanied or unaccompanied by their parents, receive 'appropriate protection.' Thailand became a party to the CRC in 1992 but maintained a reservation to Article 22 until August 30, 2024. According to Thai authorities, their decision to withdraw the reservation to Article 22 shows Thailand's 'determination to continue to promote and protect children's rights on the basis of non-discrimination and the best interests of the child.' 'By failing to provide refugee children with legal status and protection, the Thai government is exposing them to exploitation, abuse, and even disappearance,' said Matthew Smith. 'Thailand has an opportunity to show regional leadership by upholding its human rights obligations and ensuring every refugee child is protected—not punished—for seeking safety.'
