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Australian journalist ‘prepared to go to jail’ for a free media in Thailand

Alan MorrissonVeteran Australian journalist Alan Morison has said he is prepared to go to jail over criminal libel charges brought by the Royal Thai Navy to stand up for press freedom in Thailand.

Morison, who worked for The Melbourne Herald in the 1960s and has worked at newspapers in London, as well as CNN.com and The Brunei Times, says the Royal Thai Navy has failed to understand the workings of a democracy by taking legal action over an article published in July.

The Navy allege a paragraph in the article published in the Phuketwan, which summarised a Reuters report about the smuggling of Rohingya migrants, harms its reputation and has filed charges under both the defamation act and the Computer Crimes Act – two laws opposed by human rights activists.

Morison told Mumbrella Asia: “Instead of making a telephone call to explain the problem or issuing a media statement, the Royal Thai Navy sued us five months later over a paragraph we ran word for word from Reuters. The paragraph does not even mention the captain who sued, or the Royal Thai Navy. Reuters is being sued too, say the police, but even more slowly than we are.”

Both Morison and his colleague reporter Chutima Sidasathian could face up to two years in jail if the Navy proceeds with the action.

And Morison said they will not apply for bail as a form of protest and could go straight to jail to await trial for up to 84 days.

“This is a trumped-up charge,” he told Mumbrella. “By not cooperating, we will be making our protest.”

Morison said he established the Phuketwan in Thailand to fill the need for an English language newspaper that held up international reporting standards.

The case comes little more than a fortnight after Thailand climbed from 137th to 135th in the Reporters Without Borders Freedom Index, but Morison says Thailand is a long way from the top when it comes to a free media.

“The Royal Thai Navy is a good organisation. They help charities, rescue tourists and protect endangered turtles.  When a good organisation starts using bad laws, you know a country has serious problems,” he said.

“The Royal Thai Navy appears to not understand that in a democracy, the military does not sue the media, it makes telephone calls.

“It would have been so easy to do it the democratic way. We won’t make concessions. We did nothing wrong and Reuters did nothing wrong.

“We’re prepared to go to jail to show how wrong the Navy is and how foolish and repressive these laws are for a budding democracy.”

Morison and his colleague have the backing of the United Nations in the case.

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