THAILAND: AUTHORITIES MUST END MALICIOUS SMEAR CAMPAIGNS AND CYBERATTACKS ON CIVIL SOCIETY

Thai police and military units are jointly running a “Cyber Team” which deliberately sought to tarnish the reputations and undermine the legitimate work of civil society organizations and political opposition members

Amnesty International has called on the Thai authorities to investigate and take any necessary measures to end cyberattacks against human rights activists after leaked internal government documents showed that Amnesty International was among several civil society groups targeted in a coordinated, state-sponsored campaign.

The documents, which were brought to light in a recent parliamentary debate, revealed Thai police and military units are jointly running a “Cyber Team” which deliberately sought to tarnish the reputations and undermine the legitimate work of civil society organizations and political opposition members.

It also engaged in phishing attacks and brute-force attempts to access social media accounts. The former Executive Director of Amnesty International’s Thailand office was among those targeted.

“These cyberattacks are an outrageous assault on Thailand’s civic space. Thai authorities must immediately end these malicious smear campaigns against human rights defenders and activists,” Amnesty International’s Thailand Researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said.

“The Thai government must take any necessary measures to disclose full details regarding state actors’ involvement and hold accountable all those responsible—whether they are state officials, members of the security forces or private individuals.”

Amnesty International among ‘high-value targets’

During a parliamentary no-confidence debate on 25 March 2025, opposition parliamentarian Chayaphon Satondee disclosed leaked internal documents of a Cyber Team under a Joint Command Center run by police and military units, including those from the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC).

According to the leaked materials, Amnesty International was explicitly identified as a “high-value target”. Other international non-governmental organizations, local civil society groups, prominent activists, and pro-democracy figures were also in this list, including human rights organizations Thai Lawyers for Human Rights and iLaw, as well as young woman human rights defender Anna Annanon.

The Cyber Team disseminated harmful and defamatory content online. For instance, in response to Amnesty International’s social media posts related to the excessive use of force against protesters in Thailand, the Cyber Team instructed officials to respond by portraying the protesters as violent.

The documents indicated that during the 2023 election period, the Cyber Team targeted the social media accounts of prominent activists and political opponents, including Amnesty International Thailand’s then Director, Piyanut Kotsan, through attempted brute-force attacks aimed at compromising their online security.

A brute-force attack is used to gain unauthorized access to systems, networks, or encrypted data by systematically testing all possible combinations of credentials or keys until the correct one is found through trial-and-error.

At least up until October 2024, the Cyber Team continued to actively monitor Amnesty International’s social media platforms. The leaked documents showed that officials were instructed to respond aggressively to content perceived as threats to national security, notably Amnesty International’s campaigns advocating the dropping of charges against peaceful protesters and highlighting human rights violations such as the unlawful killings of Malay Muslim protesters in Tak Bai, Narathiwat Province.

Ongoing digital authoritarian practices in Thailand

In response to these allegations, during the parliamentary debate, a representative of the Thai government categorically denied any involvement in a campaign of digital attacks. Successive Thai administrations have consistently refuted similar claims of targeting activists, human rights defenders and opposition politicians, often amid high levels of secrecy and limited transparency—even despite technical and circumstantial evidence. However, these new revelations are consistent with Amnesty International’s observations that digital authoritarian practices have been a chronic problem in Thailand.

Amnesty International’s earlier research, published in May 2024, highlighted how Thai authorities and state-aligned actors systematically deployed targeted digital surveillance and online harassment, including smear campaigns, disproportionately impacting women and LGBTI human rights defenders. Such digital violence has been systematically deployed to attack human rights defenders, suppress civic engagement and severely curtail freedom of expression.

In November 2024, the UN Committee against Torture further expressed serious concerns regarding Thailand’s use of spyware and digital smear campaigns against human rights defenders, calling for prompt, thorough, impartial investigations into these instances.

Amnesty International has previously been among the civil society organizations targeted in digital attacks. In February 2021, Meta’s Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior report confirmed that the ISOC had orchestrated a coordinated inauthentic online operation that targeted Amnesty International among other civil society organizations and activists.

Amnesty International Thailand’s former Executive Director, Piyanut Kotsan, has also been repeatedly subjected to intense online smear campaigns, with abusive gender-based speech, threats of sexual violence, and disinformation, notably intensifying since the youth-led protest movements that emerged in 2020.

“Civil society organizations have repeatedly documented waves of digital attacks against human rights defenders in Thailand and have become a broken record calling on Thai authorities to investigate and end these abuses. This lates evidence only reaffirms the persistent threats facing activists and civil society,” Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said.

Empty promise of protecting human rights online

In the lead-up to a UN Human Rights Council election in September 2023, the Thai government made various commitments, including to “[d]evelop policies and legislation to promote and protect human rights in the digital and online spaces in light of new technology and to work with relevant partners to address challenges such as disinformation, misinformation and right to privacy while continuing to bridge the existing digital divide in the society.”

However, these cyberattacks are in direct violation of the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. The specific attempts to compromise social media accounts through brute-force attacks also constituted a violation of the right to privacy.

“For too long, human rights defenders in Thailand have endured a hostile environment in the digital space. Now that Thailand has a seat in the UN Human Rights Council, Thai authorities must honour their commitments, starting by ending these harmful smear campaigns and ensuring a safe and enabling environment for human rights defenders,” Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said.

Background

As a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Thailand is obligated to protect individuals’ rights to hold opinions without interference, freedom of expression, and to guard against arbitrary and unlawful intrusions into privacy. Furthermore, it has the obligation to undertake any necessary measures to prevent, investigate, punish and redress abuses perpetrated.

Amnesty International is a non-partisan organization that does not take sides in political disputes and adheres strictly to its mission as a human rights organization.