A prominent American academic and longtime resident of Thailand is facing a charge of royal defamation, following a complaint filed by the army.
Paul Chambers, a lecturer and special adviser on international affairs at Naresuan University in Phitsanulok, is scheduled to report to police on April 8 to acknowledge the complaint, according to Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher on Thailand for Human Rights Watch.
An arrest warrant for the academic was approved on Monday, Reuters reported. Mr Sunai said police who visited the university on Friday agreed not to detain Mr Chambers after negotiations with the president of the institution.
Wannaphat Jenroumjit, from Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, confirmed that her client would report to police in Phitsanulok on Tuesday.
The complaint, reportedly filed by the Third Army Region in February, stems from an online lecture Mr Chambers gave in October last year about the military reshuffle.
Local media reported that a response the academic gave during a question-and-answer session was deemed insulting to the monarchy.
Mr Chambers, who has lived in Thailand since 1993, said his response did not break the law.
After the webinar, he said, a Thai-language newspaper published an article calling for him to be fired and a Thai security official wrote a letter to his university asking questions, including about what he does and how much he makes.
“It’s so small and mundane,” he told Bloomberg News in a telephone interview. “I think the real story is why would they go through all that effort and then arrest me?”
In addition to a complaint of lese-majeste under Section 112 of the Criminal Code, Mr Chambers faces a charge of computer crime. The two charges are frequently used together.
Lese-majeste is punishable by between 3 and 15 years in prison.
The 58-year-old academic told AFP that while he felt “intimidated” by the situation, he was being supported by the US embassy and colleagues at the university.
Mr Chambers, who holds a PhD in political science from Northern Illinois University, is well-known in academic circles as a commentator on civil-military relations and democracy in Asia, with a special focus on Thailand.
His books include Khaki Capital: The Political Economy of the Military in Southeast Asia, and Praetorian Kingdom: A History of Military Ascendancy in Thailand.
Since student protests began in mid-2020, calling for abolition of the lese-majeste law and for discussions that had been off-limits in the country for decades, 278 people have been charged under Section 112, according to data compiled by Thai Lawyers for Human Rights.
Bangkok-based activist Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates, called the complaint against Mr Chambers “an astonishing and outrageous assault on academic freedom that will have a serious chilling effect on international studies in Thailand”.
“The Thai government claims it wants to be a regional leader in education, but then it takes this kind of ill-advised step that will drive away international researchers and lecturers,” he said.
