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head case
power, corruption and lies; a day in the life of thai news
•Barely • a day goes by in Thailand without news involving corruption, deceit or outright criminal activity thailand
of one kind or another, and Thailand regularly appears in lists of the most corrupt countries in the world. Last week in a Phuket court, two British men were facing defamation charges brought against them by a local lawyer who one of the men, BBC reporter Jonathan Head, had reported on in a case that involved both that lawyer and the other defendant, Ian Rance, where property was illegally transferred. The lawyer broaught the defamation case against them as he claimed the report had damaged his business; however at the eleventh hour he dropped the case against both men. The fact that the lawyer was even able to bring the case was greeted with astonishment by those aware of it, and AWOL has reported on both this case and the defamation laws here previously (Issue 419), and very carefully as well. Ian Rance still has to fight through the Thai legal system to try and get his property back, and while his is a highly publicised case, there have been and will be many more cases where both Thais and foreigners will struggle through a similar process, albeit involving less valuable properties, and without a worldwide news organisation in their corner.. This story should not be taken as a warning about buying property in Thailand; far from it, as the numbers of foreigners who have done so without drama far outweighs those who have. However it is a warning to be careful about who foreigners associate with and trust in both personal and business financial dealings, both Thai and foreign. And it is a warning, again, about the defamation law here, which the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said this year that the ‘use of criminal defamation complaints in Thailand has a chilling effect on journalists who fear being bogged down in time-consuming and expensive litigation’. Many believe this law needs to change, and soon.