The Appeal Court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed against Prachatai by Sondhi Limthongkul, former leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy and founder of ASTV media group, who claimed that Prachatai misrepresented his views and implied that he supported a military coup.

In 2023, Sondhi filed a criminal defamation lawsuit against the Foundation for Community Educational Media (FCEM), which runs the Prachatai online newspaper, and Prachatai’s then editor-in-chief Tewarit Maneechai, after Prachatai re-published a post from Sondhi’s Facebook page on its Thai-language site.

Sondhi was a founder of the royalist “Yellow Shirt” movement. Its protests in 2005 and 2006 helped to trigger the 2006 military coup which forced former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra out of office. Yellow Shirt protests in 2013 and 2014 also set the stage for the 2014 coup which ended the government of Thaksin’s sister, former PM Yingluck Shinawatra.

Sondhi claimed that the use of the headline ‘Sondhi analyses 13 challenging games of the Move Forward Party, says coup is last resort’ led the general public and his followers to misunderstand that he supports a military coup because the crucial part of his message - ‘the last resort of the game is an illegitimate coup’ - was omitted. He said this significantly changed his intended meaning and amounts to disseminating false information.

Other Thai news outlets also re-published the post, including The Standard, TNews, and Dailynews Online, but they removed the piece from their website and issued apologies after Sondhi threatened to sue them.

The Criminal Court ruled on 8 November 2023 to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds that the post is reproduced in full in the body of the article and included the phrase “illegitimate coup.” Because of this, the article does not constitute an accusation against Sondhi and is therefore not defamatory.

The Appeal Court later ruled on Friday (28 November) to uphold the Criminal Court’s ruling to dismiss the charge, stating that apart from the phrase “illegitimate coup”, which was omitted in the headline, the text, font size, and other elements accurately aligned with the one originally published by Sondhi on his Facebook page. Sondhi himself also acknowledged that the content on the Prachatai’s website aligned with his own opinions.

The phrase “illegitimate coup” was already added in a lede, and the audience would have been able to understand Sondhi’s views in full context. The Appeal Court also stated that the news published on Prachatai’s website did not serve as confirmation of facts that could cause reputational damage to Sondhi. It was merely a transmission of information to the public as a media professional.