A court in northern Thailand yesterday denied a request for bail for a prominent American academic accused of violating the country’s harsh royal defamation law.
Prof. Paul Chambers, a lecturer in political science at Naresuan University in Phitsanulok, a city in northern Thailand, was formally charged when he presented himself to police yesterday and appeared at Phitsanulok Provincial Court, the Bangkok Post reported. The court denied his bail application, citing flight risks because he is a foreigner facing charges that carry heavy penalties. Chambers is now being held in pretrial detention at Phitsanulok provincial prison.
The warrant for Chambers’ arrest was approved by the court on March 31, after the regional army command filed a complaint against the academic, accusing him of violating Article 112 of the Thai penal code, which criminalizes critical comments about the country’s monarchy. In addition to a charge under Article 112, Chambers is also accused of violating the Computer Crime Act. If found guilty under Article 112, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Chambers’ lawyers have submitted another bail request, arguing that their client has a medical condition and “would be happy to follow conditions set by the court, such as having a supervisor appointed and being required to report to the court,” the Post reported.
Chambers, who has lived in Thailand for many years and is fluent in both Thai and Lao, is a recognized expert on the country and has written extensively on a range of topics related to Thailand and Southeast Asia, including civil-military relations and the role of the Royal Thai Army in Thailand’s political economy.
The army’s initial complaint did not specify the exact offense, but Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate of the advocacy group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, who is part of Chambers’ legal team, said that he is accused of publishing a blurb on the website of Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. The blurb was linked to a webinar that the institute held with Chambers in October 2024 to discuss recent Thai military and police reshuffles.
“He denied all charges. He neither wrote nor published the blurb on the website,” Akarachai told CNN.
Even if he had, it is unclear how the blurb violated Article 112. It stated that the reshuffles highlighted “ongoing factionalism and the tensions between civilian and military preferences” and that Chambers would “explore who the new appointees are, the factions they represent, and how they may impact civil-military relations.” There is nothing in the blurb touching even obliquely on the Thai monarchy.
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department expressed “concern” about Chambers’ arrest, while Elaine Pearson, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said that it “poses a serious threat to academic freedom and free speech in Thailand.”
“The Thai authorities have long used the royal insult law to abuse Thai citizens but now seem intent on violating the rights of foreigners,” she said in a statement. Jonathan Head of the BBC, who has covered the lese-majeste issue extensively, said that its use against Chambers, “one of the most respected academics working here,” was “extraordinary” and a “terrible look” for the country.
Thailand’s lese-majeste law is one of the harshest in the world, and sentences for those found guilty of violating it can stretch into decades. At least 274 people are currently facing charges under Article 112, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, many of them leaders or participants of the youth-led protests of 2020 and 2021. The protests, which followed the dissolution of the progressive Future Forward party in early 2020, were notable for the open discussion of the monarchy, and the ways in which it has helped legitimize Thailand’s lopsided distribution of wealth and power.
That said, the law is rarely used against foreigners, and like many academics and journalists working in and on Thailand, Chambers took great care to avoid careless criticisms of the monarchy.
The last foreigner to be arrested for lese-majeste was Joseph Gordon, a Thai-born U.S. citizen also known by his Thai name Lerpong Wichaikhammat. Gordon was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 2011 for publishing a blog that included a link to a Thai translation of “The King Never Smiles,” Paul Handley’s critical 2006 biography of the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which has been banned in Thailand.
Given that much of Chambers’ research has focused on the inner workings of the Thai military, and the offending strip of text makes no mention of the monarchy, it is only logical to assume that he has been targeted for the subject of his research. Chambers’ true crime, Zachary Abuza of the Naval War College in Washington wrote on X, was that “he lays out the system of networks within the elite ranks of the Thai military.”
If true, this only underlines the argument of the increasing numbers of Thai democrats who are pushing for the reform of Article 112: that the law has been used as a political cudgel against dissenters and critics of the country’s prevailing political and economic order.
However, acquittals for lese-majeste cases are rare, and the fact that Chambers was denied bail, despite voluntarily presenting himself to police yesterday, suggests that the court may mindlessly convict him.