November 12, 2025
Dear Prime Minister,
Congratulations on your appointment as the Prime Minister of Thailand.
Human Rights Watch is an international nongovernmental organization that monitors and reports on human rights issues in more than 100 countries around the world. We have reported on Thailand for over three decades.
We are writing to urge your government to promptly address the following human rights issues and take concrete steps to reaffirm pledges that your government gave at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 27, 2025 to promote and protect human rights for all.
Respect for Freedom of Expression and Assembly
Expression of critical and dissenting opinions remains restricted in Thailand. As of August 2025, at least 1,986 people have been prosecuted for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful public assembly.
The continued use of Penal Code section 112 on lese majesté (insulting the monarchy), which carries punishment of up to 15 years in prison for each offense, shows that Thai authorities have imposed excessive restrictions on the legitimate exercise of freedom of expression. At least 284 people are currently being prosecuted on lese majesté charges.
Making comments about the monarchy can also be a serious criminal offense under the Computer-Related Crime Act. Thai authorities have also used sedition charges to prosecute over 150 democracy activists and dissidents for alleged criticism of the monarchy.
Thai authorities have often held critics of the monarchy in pretrial detention for months without access to bail. On May 14, 2024, anti-monarchy activist Netiporn Sanesangkhom died during pretrial detention. Prominent human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa faces 14 royal defamation cases related to his speeches and online commentary calling for reforms of the monarchy. All of his bail applications have been denied. In August 2024, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for his immediate release.
Your government should reform the lese majesté law, adopt a moratorium on prosecutions and pretrial detention of people under the law, and ensure that the adoption of any comprehensive amnesty bill includes critics of the monarchy.
In addition, your government should recognize that the sedition and the computer-related crime laws have been abused to suppress fundamental freedoms, and immediately seek to reform those laws in compliance with international human right standards.
Your government should also immediately dismiss all pending Covid-19 restriction-related charges. The nationwide enforcement of emergency measures to control the spread of Covid-19 was lifted in October 2022, but at least 1,469 people are still being prosecuted under the charges related to those measures.
Ending Torture and Enforced Disappearances
Thailand is a state party to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, but enforcement of the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, which took effect in February 2023, remains weak.
Numerous allegations of police and military personnel using torture and other ill-treatment against ethnic Malay Muslims in custody during counterinsurgency operations in the southern border provinces remain unaddressed. During the five years of military rule after the 2014 coup, many people taken into incommunicado military custody alleged that soldiers tortured or otherwise ill-treated them during their detention and interrogation.
On May 27, 2025, the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases in Rayong province found two army instructors guilty in the death of Pvt. Worapratch Phadmasakul and sentenced them to 15 and 20 years in prison, respectively. Eleven senior conscripts face 10-year prison terms for assisting the crime. This is a positive step toward accountability for the long-reported use of torture as a form of punishment of military conscripts. These are the first convictions under the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act,.
Since 1980, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has recorded 76 cases of enforced disappearance in Thailand. At least nine Thai dissidents who fled persecution in Thailand were forcibly disappeared in neighboring countries during the government of Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-ocha, allegedly in the context of cross-border violations of human rights, known as transnational repression. None of these cases have either been resolved or seriously investigated by Thai authorities, even after the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand publicly urged Thai authorities to take action in June 2024. Human Rights Watch’s 2024 report “We Thought We Were Safe” details Thailand’s enforced disappearance and forced return of foreign political dissidents to countries where they are at risk of torture or persecution.
Your government should effectively enforce its international legal obligations and address outstanding cases under domestic law.
Protection of Human Rights Defenders
Your government should ensure that human rights defenders in Thailand can carry out their work in a safe and enabling environment, in line with the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders.
The killing and enforced disappearance of human rights defenders and other civil society activists is a serious blot on Thailand’s human rights record. Since 2001, more than 20 human rights defenders and civil society activists have been killed. Even in serious criminal cases involving the public interest that are referred to the Justice Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI), those responsible have not been punished. Cover-up actions, in the form of poor police work and lack of willingness to pursue evidence, effectively blocked efforts to prosecute soldiers who fatally shot ethnic Lahu activist Chaiyaphum Pasae in March 2017 in Chiang Mai province; a forestry official accused of abducting and murdering ethnic Karen activist Porlajee Rakchongchareon in April 2014 in Phetchaburi province; and police officers allegedly responsible for the enforced disappearance of Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit in March 2004 in Bangkok. The police have made no progress in investigating violent attacks in 2019 targeting prominent democracy activists Sirawith Seritiwat, Anurak Jeantawanich, and Ekachai Hongkangwan.
On October 15, 2025, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights Defenders expressed concerns about reports of death threats and online attacks against Senator Angkhana Neelapaijit, a former national human rights commissioner, as a result of her comments regarding possible international humanitarian law violations in the recent Thailand-Cambodia border conflict.
Despite the adoption of the National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights in 2019 and 2023, Thai authorities have failed to protect rights defenders from reprisals and end the abusive use of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP). For example, in September 2025, the public prosecutor in Nonthaburi province indicted prominent environmentalist Witoon Lianchamroon and the BioThai Foundation for criminal defamation. The case was brought by Charoen Pokphand Foods following an academic forum in 2024 alleging the company’s fish farms were responsible for environmental harms caused by the spread of an invasive fish species, Blackchin Tilapia.
Protection for Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Despite not being a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, Thailand has a long and globally recognized reputation for being a refuge for people fleeing war and persecution.
Unfortunately, Thai authorities in recent years have violated the domestic and international prohibitions against refoulement by returning refugees and asylum seekers to countries where they are likely to face persecution or torture. Thai authorities have forcibly returned asylum seekers and refugees from Bahrain, Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Turkey, Vietnam, and other countries. For example, in February 2025, the government of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sent 40 Uyghur men to China, where they could face torture, arbitrary detention, and long-term imprisonment. Their forced repatriation was condemned by UN agencies, foreign governments, and human rights groups.
Also raising serious concerns is the increasing cooperation between Thai and Vietnamese authorities to pressure Vietnamese refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand. Vietnamese officials have been observed inside Thai immigration detention facilities allegedly pressuring detained refugees and asylum seekers to return to Vietnam. In June 2024 Vietnamese authorities were involved in the arrest in Thailand of a Vietnamese dissident, Y Quynh Bdap, who now faces extradition from Thailand to Vietnam. Thai police continue to detain Vietnamese refugees and asylum seekers, including those recognized by the UN refugee agency, at times at the apparent request of Vietnamese authorities.
Cambodian exiles are also facing increasing risks in Thailand. After the murder of former Cambodian opposition parliamentarian Lim Kinya in Bangkok on January 7, many critics of the Cambodian government living in Thailand have expressed concern for their safety.
Thailand has sheltered a large number of refugees from Myanmar since the mid-1980s. More than 100,000 Myanmar refugees living in Thailand in camps along the border for four decades lost access to essential food and medical aid due to funding cuts by the United States on July 31 and by other countries, putting their well-being at serious risk. In a positive step, on August 26 the Paetongtarn government approved measures allowing Myanmar refugees to work legally. Your government is to be commended for ensuring the new policy took effect October 1. We urge your government to expedite the bureaucratic processes for permissions and approvals to ensure refugees are permitted to leave the camps and receive work permits promptly. National and provincial authorities should ensure the permit application process is transparent, accessible, and timely, with protections in place to avoid exploitation or extortion by brokers.
More recent migrants from Myanmar also need attention. Since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, millions of Myanmar nationals have sought safety in Thailand fleeing violence, persecution, a collapsing economy, and aid blockages. Nearly half of all Myanmar nationals in Thailand are estimated to be undocumented. In a report published in July 2025, “I’ll Never Feel Secure,” Human Rights Watch documented how Thailand is denying Myanmar nationals a regular path to secure legal status, with authorities regularly using their vulnerabilities to exploit or extort money from them.
Your government should take steps to protect Myanmar nationals in line with international standards, including introducing a temporary protection framework, giving them access to legal status, and recognizing the immediate needs of people fleeing conflict, whether they are in border areas or elsewhere in Thailand.
The law and regulations establishing Thailand’s National Screening Mechanism for asylum seekers have been officially promulgated. Thai authorities should stop refusing to consider Lao, Hmong, Uyghurs, Rohingya, and North Koreans for refugee status determination because such policy contravenes principles of non-discrimination in international human rights law. Ultimately, your government should ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol.
Accountability for State-Sponsored Abuses
The 2007 Independent Committee for the Investigation, Study and Analysis of the Formulation and Implementation of Narcotic Suppression Policy found that the policy formulation and assessment of the 2003 “war on drugs” was driven by an all-out effort to achieve the campaign's political goals, and disregarded respect for human rights and due process of law. Your government should implement the committee’s recommendation that there should be a further inquiry into the killing of 2,819 people during the 2003 “war on drugs” to bring those responsible for abuses to account, as well as to end the cycle of abuse and impunity in drug suppression operations. Your government should also institute a policy to provide prompt, fair, and adequate compensation for the victims and family members of victims of human rights violations committed in the context of drug suppression operations.
Despite overwhelming evidence that soldiers were responsible for most casualties during the 2010 political confrontations with the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), known as the “Red Shirts,” which left at least 99 dead and more than 2,000 injured, no military personnel or government officials from the administration of then-Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva have been charged. Renewed efforts to ensure government security forces are held accountable for these rights abuses should be urgently undertaken.
The armed conflict in Thailand’s southern Pattani, Yala, Narathiwat, and Songkhla provinces has resulted in more than 7,000 deaths by ethnic insurgents and government forces since January 2004. Successive governments have failed to prosecute members of security forces responsible for torture, unlawful killings, and other abuses of ethnic Malay Muslims. In many cases, Thai authorities provided financial compensation to victims or their families in exchange for their agreement not to speak out against the security forces and not file criminal cases against officials. The 20-year statute of limitations of the Tak Bai crackdown, which left 85 dead and several hundred injured, ended in October 2024, preventing further legal action. Your government should investigate and hold criminally accountable those responsible for human rights abuses in the deep south in addition to simply providing financial compensation.
Human Rights and Humanitarian Crises in Myanmar
Since the 2021 military coup, the Myanmar junta has carried out widespread abuses across the country, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. The junta’s assault on the population has decimated the country’s infrastructure, economy, civil and political activity, rule of law, health care, and education system.
In this context, the junta’s plans to hold elections starting in late December 2025 are entirely untenable. The junta has neither the credibility nor capacity to organize free and fair elections. Widespread repression, including the arbitrary detention of opposition politicians, the dissolution and criminalization of their political parties, and the crackdown on dissenting voices have created a climate of fear and violence in which no democratic or inclusive election can take place.
Your government should deny any technical or diplomatic support for the junta’s sham elections, while intensifying efforts through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its partners to establish tangible, timebound consequences for the junta’s ongoing disregard of the Five-Point Consensus and its continuing grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Thailand and other ASEAN members should adopt a stronger position, including by cutting the junta’s access to foreign funding and military weapons and materiel, to deter the junta from committing abuses and facilitate better humanitarian access. Lastly, your government should coordinate with international partners and civil society organizations to increase assistance for Myanmar’s displaced people and refugees, including through cross-border efforts.
We trust that you will make aforementioned human rights issues a major priority in the first months of your administration. Human Rights Watch would welcome discussing these concerns with you directly and offer specific recommendations.
We thank you for your consideration of these important matters and look forward to your response.
