The English-language Phuketwan site in July posted a story carrying excerpts from a report by the Reuters news agency alleging that members of the Thai military were involved in trafficking captured Rohingya illegal immigrants.
Alan Morison, Phuketwan's editor, told The Associated Press yesterday that he had been summoned along with one of Thai reporters on Wednesday to a police station in Phuket to formally acknowledge the charges.
The lawsuit filed by a captain on behalf of the Thai navy charges that the website violated Thailand's 2007 Computer Crime Act, which bars the circulation of material deemed detrimental to national security or that causes panic. Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling on the Thai government to withdraw the case, saying it could have "a choking effect on all investigative reporting in Thailand."
Phuketwan has for several years taken a leading role in reporting on the plight of minority Muslim Rohingya from Myanmar fleeing persecution and poverty to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The journey is a perilous one, and they are often forced back out to sea or detained if they make landfall.
"We were disappointed that the Royal Thai Navy decided to use a bad law against journalists who are just doing their jobs," Morison said. "It would have been so easy to telephone us or to hold a media conference to set the record straight." "This just makes us keener to know who is mistreating the Rohingya in the secret camps along Thailand's southern border, and how they reach there by sea," he added.