Lawsuit Dropped by French PR Firm Against Thai Labour Campaign

The Thai subsidiary of French-based public relations giant Publicis Groupe has withdrawn its ill-brought libel lawsuit against Junya Lek Timprasert and the Thai Labour Campaign (TLC). Lawyers for the company dropped the suit, which was before Bangkok’s Southern Criminal Court, on 20 June.

The TLC, with Lek as coordinator, has received strong support from the ICEM over the years in its efforts to reveal human rights and labour rights violations in Thailand. Their “crime” in the Publicis Thailand case was to republish an article from CSR Asia Weekly on the TLC website regarding an unfair dismissal case brought forward by five women workers of the public relations subsidiary.

The company, in 2005, had charged TLC and Lek with “defamation by propagation” in the Thai court. Lek faced jail time, while TLC might have had to pay monetary damages and seen limitations to its valuable work, had global pressure not been brought against the French public relations company to drop the lawsuit.

“It is frustrating that we, who are directly in contact with workers that produce for the world and witness many rights violations, cannot bring situations to the attention of the world without the risk of being sued,” said Lek. “Furthermore, workers who report to us, of course, face all kinds of pressures and risk being dismissed.”