Civil Society Under Threat in Thailand?
THAILAND STUDIES PROGRAMME WEBINAR
About the Webinar
The past year has seen the government of Thai Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha working toward the introduction of an Act on the Operations of Not-for-Profit Organizations. Draft versions of this act have contained provisions on the registration of civil society organizations and on their financial reporting and disclosure, as well as broad and nebulous prohibitions on activities that are allegedly not in the national interest. Observers fear that these provisions and prohibitions represent grave threats to freedom of expression and of association in Thailand. Critics further contend that the act may not only violate the Thai constitution and international law but also enable the Thai state to intimidate advocates for rights. This webinar will offer legal and comparative perspectives on the Thai government’s civil-society bill, describe popular efforts to resist its adoption, and address the implications of its enactment for civil-society organizations and democratic space in Thailand.
About the Speakers
Chiranuch Premchaiporn is Coordinator of Thailand’s Constitutional Advocacy Alliance and a co-founder and the former webmaster of its pioneering independent journalism portal Prachatai.com. A veteran HIV/AIDS campaigner, and one of Thailand’s most prominent advocates of freedom of expression, she graduated from Thammasat University’s Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication. In 2012, Newsweek magazine named Ms Chiranuch one of the world’s 150 Fearless Women, after she was charged under Thailand’s Computer-related Crime Act for failing promptly to remove a comment deemed to insult the monarchy from the Prachatai web-board. She was subsequently convicted.
Julie Hunter is a legal advisor in the Asia & the Pacific Program of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Washington, D.C. Her extensive work on human rights and the extractive sector in Southeast Asia and the Pacific includes service as a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Law, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Ms Hunter is a graduate of Harvard College, the London School of Economics and Yale Law School. She is admitted to practice law as a member of the New York State Bar.
Registration
This webinar will be delivered online entirely. You can join the webinar at the specified date and time using devices (computer, phone, or tablet) with internet connection.
Please register here to receive your unique link for joining the webinar.
Limited spaces only, register early to avoid disappointment.