On July 31 (Thailand), Human Rights Watch reported that Angkhana Neelapaijit, a senator and former member of Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission, filed a police complaint after a wave of social media posts accused her of being unpatriotic and sympathetic to a separatist group, with some posts calling for her to be killed or “disappeared.” HRW urged Thai authorities to investigate the coordinated online harassment, which targets a prominent accountability figure long associated with human rights and rule-of-law advocacy. The case illustrates how intimidation of legal and civil-society actors who defend rights and oversee state conduct can be used to chill independent oversight in a fragile democracy.

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