Oct 1 2025, 12:01 PM, updated 3 months ago
Thailand’s police have taken the extraordinary step of arresting Murray Hunter, a journalist and Australian national, on criminal defamation charges, apparently at the behest of Malaysia, triggering charges of transnational repression of free speech in Asean.
The September 29 detention, said to have been ordered by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), immediately sent jitters through the journalism fraternity. Thailand, particularly in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, has long been a regional home to foreign journalists for major news organizations reporting critically across the area, particularly on repression in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, which is locked in a bloody five-year civil war with rebels seeking a return to democracy.
Critics are comparing Hunter’s arrest to a May affair in which Malaysia cooperated in the return of Cambodian domestic worker Nuon Thoeun, who was deported back to her home country after she posted on social media criticizing Cambodian government leaders. Thailand itself returned four women and two men in 2024 to be charged by Cambodia with treason for posting social media statements criticizing Cambodian policies, and has returned other nationalities to China.
“This again demonstrates the hypocrisy in Asean,” said a prominent Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer who asked not to be named, ironically for fear of retribution. “While trumpeting on the Asean Commissioner for Human Rights and their commitment to civil liberties, the political reality is that 10 countries cooperate with each other to arrest, charge, or deport governmental critics and dissidents. This occurs even if no crime is committed in the state taking the action. Thus, Murray hasn’t committed any crime under Thai law.”
Journalists are particular targets for such transnational repression, according to the London-based Freedom House. “Perpetrator governments regularly reach beyond their borders to intimidate journalists and suppress truthful reporting,” the NGO said. “Since 2014, 26 governments have carried out 124 incidents of transnational repression against exiled journalists. Authoritarian leaders view independent media and whistleblowers, both at home and abroad, as activists who threaten their power.”
Hunter, who lives in southern Thailand, told local media he was taken into custody at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok at about 7:30 am while preparing to board a flight to Hong Kong. “I was shocked by what happened. I have not done anything wrong in Thailand,” he was quoted as saying.
“I’m stuck here,” Hunter said of his Bangkok ordeal in a WhatsApp interview with Asia Sentinel. “It’s unbelievable. The police forces are working together to suppress free speech.” He told Asia Sentinel that he had “just got out of jail and I’m on bail for a hearing on November 17. The MCMC conned the Thai police to use criminal defamation on me. Now journalists in Thailand are not safe if third countries seek Thai assistance to prosecute people they don’t like.”
A long-time resident of Malaysia and Thailand, Hunter is widely known for his stinging critiques of Anwar Ibrahim’s Pakatan Harapan coalition government. Originally an academician and consultant to Asian governments on community development and village biotechnology, he was a lecturer at Universiti Malaysia in the northern state of Perlis until 2015. He has written for a long list of publications including New Mandela, Online Opinion, Pravda, Eurasia Review, MIC, local Malaysian news sites, and others, and is the author of several books. He wrote for Asia Sentinel as well but started his own blog on Substack three years ago and no longer contributes.
“I’m tired from a night on the floor in jail,” he said. His troubles with the MCMC actually started last February, he said, when the Malaysian agency filed the defamation charges against him, “but we thought it was all bullshit.”
In April 2024, the MCMC accused Hunter of “slanderous postings” for accusing the commission of acting beyond its jurisdiction for personal interests, of being politically influenced by the Pakatan Harapan administration, and claiming that the commission and the police were trying to scare the public. The commission “categorically rejected all baseless accusations.”
Thai authorities took his passport, he said, and he can’t leave Bangkok before his November hearing.
His troubles with the Malaysian government have been growing for several years, he said. The MCMC blocked his blog, carried on Substack, three years ago. He singled out Salim Fateh Din, formerly the Interim Chairman of MCMC and a senior member of the United Malays National Organization, as a particular foe.
While Hunter has become widely known across Malaysia as an Anwar critic, repeatedly delivering specific examples of corruption and predicting the Pakatan Harapan coalition’s imminent demise, which has earned him the anger of the government, there is little doubt that despite Anwar’s liberal credentials, his administration has become increasingly more restrictive to freedom of information.
Blogs have been summarily shut down, and journalists have been threatened by government officials. “Don’t get upset with me if there is a call or a radio car outside of your house. We are monitoring, behave yourself,” Fahmi Fadzil, the minister of Communications, famously told reporters in 2023. Asia Sentinel has been repeatedly blocked over the years for reporting critically on Malaysian politics and scandals although Fahmi denied it personally in an email.
https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/thailand-arr...alaysia-request
Thailand arrest Murray Hunter at Malaysian request
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