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His alleged crime was his writing.
Thailand has form in prosecuting defamation, notably on matters of lèse-majesté – slights on the royal family. But Hunter had not defamed the monarchy.He was not even alleged to have defamed anyone from Thailand.
What set his case apart, attracting the reforming attention of a powerful thai senate committee, is that hunter, 68, faced prosecution in Thai courts and eight years’ in a Thai jail for offending an agency of the Malaysian government. Rights groups in Thailand and elsewhere labelled it “transnational repression”.
The allegedly defamatory articles were about the Malaysian media regulator.Credit: Getty Images
The four allegedly defamatory articles, posted to the blog site Substack in April 2024, accused the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, the country’s statutory media regulator, of blocking sites critical of the Malaysian government and its chairperson of having conflicts of interest.
Knocking the Malaysian government for attempting to silence critics was nothing new among writers and freedom watchers.
