An Appeal Court ruling penalising the Internal Security Operations Command (Isoc) for its information operation (IO) against two human rights defenders sets a welcome precedent for the protection of rights.
In the Thursday ruling, the court ordered the military arm to pay more than 200,000 baht, plus interest as set down by law, to Angkhana Neelapaijit, now a senator, and 90,000 baht plus interest to Anchana Heemmina, a prominent activist in the restive South, as compensation for an IO that damaged their reputations.
The lawsuit relates to Isoc's information campaign in 2017 that tainted their reputations.
Funded by taxpayers' money, the IO disseminated photographs and information about activists, civil society members and human rights defenders on a media platform that constantly attacked women human rights defenders, including Ms Angkhana and Ms Anchana.
Although Ms Angkhana's name was not mentioned directly in the Isoc materials, her photograph was used on the website alongside misleading and false headlines designed to sow hatred towards her and other human rights activists. Across three fiscal years, as revealed in the parliamentary budget debate, Isoc launched 140 campaigns against opposing or dissenting parties.
Isoc's information campaign in the South is not merely shameful -- it has severely undermined the government's attempt to tackle violence in the Deep South. Meanwhile, the IO served as a smokescreen that diverted public scrutiny from arbitrary state detention and from the opaque budget allocated to Isoc.
Indeed, the widening conflict between the state security apparatus and local political activists has played into the hands of insurgent groups, which exploit the internal discord to make local communities doubt Isoc and the army even more.
Looking back, Isoc -- like the army and other security agencies -- is no stranger to controversy. A number of people, and politicians, particularly political activists, have complained of IO operations designed to discredit opponents as enemies of the state and threats to national security.
Last year a group of activists and academics lodged a complaint with the Administrative Court against a military IO that targeted them. While the court accepted that certain army elements had conducted IO methods, it found no strong evidence that they had received orders from their superiors. Instead, the court ruled that the low-ranking officers had acted on their own, because they personally disagreed with the plaintiffs.
Isoc was at the centre of public attention last year when Puangthong Pawakapan, an academic and lecturer at the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University, launched a book, Infiltrating Society: The Thai Military's Internal Security Affairs, which brought public attention to the agency's vast power and its surveillance of civilian affairs.
Isoc countered the professor's narrative, questioning her methodology, and sought to suspend the book launch. Such an effort cast the agency in a bad light, while its attempt at a ban merely backfired.
In a more recent controversy, Isoc was in hot water over a recent assassination attempt on a southern politician, after a vehicle used by a group of assailants -- ex-marines and security officers -- was found to belong to the agency. Subsequently, a prominent journalist who covered the issue complained she had become a victim of a military IO.
Back to the Thursday ruling: Isoc made a vague statement that it acquiesced to the sentence, without elaboration. It thus remains unclear whether it will petition the Supreme Court to overturn the historic ruling. It should not.
It should be noted this case had already dragged on for more than six years before the court gave its ruling in favour of Senator Angkhana -- whose husband, the human rights lawyer Somchai, fell victim to enforced disappearance -- and the activist. To further appeal the ruling would mean a further delay in accountability.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, in his capacity as Isoc director, must see to it that the agency accepts the ruling without condition, and take this opportunity to review its role and responsibilities, correct past misdeeds and pursue reform so as to ensure its relevance in the modern world.
