Thai government complains about EU Reporter coverage of human rights, people trafficking and illegal fishing

EU Reporter has received a letter of complaint from the government of Thailand about articles published in EU Reporter which were critical of the present government, and its record on human rights, people trafficking and illegal fishing.

EU Reporter publishes articles submitted by credible and verifiable sources, and does not seek to influence the content nor opinions of the writers. The stories mentioned were by well-known journalists and elected European politicians.

EU Reporter seeks a balanced debate, and invites the government of Thailand to rebut any story to which it objects.

EU Reporter will not, however, acquiesce to any attempt to restrict the freedom of the press or prevent balanced objective reporting of the issues. Below we publish in full the recent letter from His Excellency Nopadol Gunavibool, Ambassador of Thailand and Head of Mission EU, to allow our audience the opportunity to see both sides of the debate and form their own decisions.

Dear Editor,
I wish to refer to the article 'Leading NGO calls for sanctions to be imposed on Thai military junta' by Martin Banks (2 November 2015) in your online newspaper.

If I am not mistaken, this article is the 7th in the series of articles on Thailand published in your newspaper in less than 6 weeks. While we welcome bona fide comments from friends around the world, the sudden surge of interest in Thailand by your newspaper, most if not all of the times one-sided, casts certain doubt on the real intention of its editorial contents, especially as the rebut from the Embassy is never published in your newspaper to give the readers a fair chance to consume information from all angles.

This particular article cites that Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) as well as certain MEPs call for economic and political pressure from the EU and the US to entail positive development in human rights, rule of law and democracy in Thailand. But unfortunately, the article fails to give even scant reference to Thailand's adoption of the 3rd National Human Rights Plan to serve as a framework for all government agencies to apply the promotion and protection of human rights in a more holistic and efficient ways. A number of human rights-related laws have also been passed or upgraded in this Government, including gender Equality Act, the Public Assembly Act, the Prevention and Suppression of Human Trafficking Act, and the amendment of the Criminal Code to criminalize child pornography, among others.

As this article refers to the US's 2015 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, we believe that the newspaper could do a better service to its readers by also referring to the report on the Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, announced on 30 September 2015 by the U.S. Department of Labour. This report finds Thailand a country with "significant advancement" in tackling child labour issues, highest categories of the countries could achieve and an upgrade from the 2013 placement of Thailand at moderate advancement level.

The upgrade of Thailand from moderate to "significant advancement" was due to several actions taken by the Thai government, including (1) the creation of a National Policy Committee to address issues regarding migrant and human trafficking problems, which demonstrates the Thai Government's efforts to reduce child labour issues, (2) changes in the legal framework by the Ministry of Labour to raise the minimum age of workers in the agriculture and fishing sectors, (3) significant funding and supporting programmes that target preventing and eliminating child labour, including its worst forms, (4) a proactive multi-disciplinary team responsible for child labour law enforcement, and (5) the evaluation of the National Plan of Action (NPA) to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labour (2009-2014), which will provide input for the second phase of the NPA for 2015-2020.

The article concludes with a reference to an interview by an unnamed Commission's health directorate official on illegal fishery (IUU) dialogue between Thailand and the EU. It should be noted that health directorate is nowhere in the ongoing IUU dialogue. It should also be noted that on 3 November this year the Thai Government has adopted a new fisheries legislation and two important plans, i.e. National Plan of Action on IUU Fishing (NPAO-IUU) and Fishery Management Plan (FM?). If the newspaper have genuine interest and concerns about the situation in Thailand, please find updates on the situation in Thailand from the Embassy's website (www.thaiembassy. be).

The Embassy does expect that this letter is published in your newspaper. At the very least your readers have the rights to fair information and perspectives from all sides.

Yours sincerely,

Nopadol Gunavibool
Ambassador and Head of Mission

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