Reuters/Bangkok
A British rights activist went on trial in Bangkok yesterday accused by a Thai fruit company of defamation in the first of a series of criminal and civil lawsuits filed against him by the firm.
The company, Natural Fruit Co Ltd, accuses the activist, Andy Hall, 34, of libel in a report published in 2013 that he helped author for Finnwatch, a Finland-based watchdog group. The report pointed to alleged ill-treatment of migrant workers at a factory owned by Natural Fruit, including low pay and the confiscation of passports.
Natural Fruit has denied the accusations.
Hall, speaking to reporters before the court session in Bangkok yesterday, denied libelling the company. “We’re just going to fight it on the basis of public interest,” he said.
Natural Fruit did not immediately respond to a request for comment yesterday when contacted by Reuters.
Finnwatch said the Thai fruit industry should reform.
“Instead of issuing threats and exploiting workers, it is time the industry changed its approach,” Finnwatch Executive Director Sonja Vartiala said in a statement last week.
“Otherwise, there is a danger companies and consumers will no longer want to buy Thai products.”
The trial comes as civil society groups voice increasing concern over what they say is a rise in the number of criminal defamation cases brought by the military against rights workers and journalists in an attempt to silence them. The military, which has ruled in Thailand since a May 22 coup, has no connection with the case against Hall.
The trial that began yesterday concerns the first of four cases brought against Hall by Natural Fruit, one of Thailand’s largest pineapple processors and a major supplier of fruit drinks to the European market. The trial comes after Thailand was downgraded in June to the lowest “Tier 3” status in the US State Department’s 2014 Trafficking in Persons Report for not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
The State Department did not identify any companies in the report.
Thailand’s economy is heavily dependent on foreign migrant labourers, mostly from Myanmar, who perform the jobs most Thais are unwilling to do including work as farm hands and on rickety fishing boats. Some are undocumented, or illegal, labourers, which leaves them vulnerable to forced labour and trafficking.
Yesterday’s trial concerns defamation charges brought against Hall for an interview he gave to Qatar-based Al Jazeera television based on the report alleging rights abuses at Natural Fruit. If found guilty, Hall faces up to seven years in prison.
Britain’s Ethical Trading Initiative, an alliance of companies, trade unions and NGOs whose members include British supermarkets including Tesco and Sainsbury’s, have called on the Thai pineapple industry to drop the charges against Hall.
British rights activist Andy Hall is surrounded by his supporters as he arrives for his trial at the Phra Khanong Provincial Court in Bangkok yesterda
