Case Explained: Australian writer Murray Hunter apologises to Malaysian regulator over criminal complaint in Thailand – Legal Perspective

An Australian writer has avoided jail in Thailand after a criminal defamation complaint was lodged against him by Malaysia’s communications regulator.

Retired academic Murray Hunter, who grew up in Melbourne and has lived in Thailand for 20 years, apologised to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and removed blog posts over which the MCMC had lodged a criminal defamation complaint in Bangkok.

Akarachai Chaimaneekarakate of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, who represented Hunter pro bono, said Thailand’s criminal defamation framework allowed complainants — even from outside the country — to trigger a criminal process.

“Once a complaint is filed, Thai authorities will take care of the rest,” he said.

In September, Hunter was at Bangkok airport bound for Hong Kong when Thai police arrested him and put him in a cell for 24 hours.

The MCMC had taken issue with four of Hunter’s posts, published on the blogging platform Substack, in which he accused the agency of abusing its power and protecting corporate interests.

Months of mediation ordered by a Thai judge culminated in Hunter last week agreeing to apologise and retract the articles in full.

“I acknowledge that my comments and articles about MCMC and its related persons can be read to be inaccurate, misleading and have led to misunderstandings,” his apology reads.

In a statement provided to the ABC, the MCMC said from its perspective, “the matter is being brought to an orderly close”.

Hunter said the months-long ordeal, which resulted in a conciliation agreement, had damaged his health.

Human Rights Watch’s Australia director, Daniela Gavshon, said the charges against Hunter were “extremely problematic and should never have been made in the first place”.

“The Malaysian government uses vaguely worded laws to target critics,” she said.

“Murray Hunter’s case, though, was a new frontier in the Malaysian government’s attempts to repress speech.”

Thailand urged to end ‘cross-border repression’

Freedom of expression advocacy group PEN International welcomed the resolution but said Malaysia should drop all remaining cases against Hunter and restore access to his Substack newsletter in the country.

“Even though a settlement has now been reached, the case illustrates how legal systems can be weaponised to intimidate journalists beyond national borders,” PEN’s Asia-Pacific head, Michael Rosen-Lupu, said.

“It sets a dangerous precedent, signalling to writers and commentators that critical analysis may expose them to the threat of imprisonment abroad.

“Thailand should repeal or fundamentally reform its criminal defamation provisions to ensure its courts are never used as a tool to silence critics on behalf of other governments.”

Thai senator Pornchai Witayalerdpan, who sits on parliamentary committees regarding human rights and foreign affairs, said he was “cautiously optimistic” the country would do so.

Hunter’s case appeared to be “an act of transnational repression where a foreign state agency uses our justice system to silence a critic that they perhaps could not silence by criminal means in their own jurisdiction”, he told the ABC.

“Thai taxpayers are essentially paying the financial cost for the police and prosecutors to pursue a case that serves the political interests of a foreign agency rather than the Thai public,” he said.

The progressive People’s Party — which leads the polls ahead of Thailand’s February 8 general election — last year proposed a bill to close loopholes that enable transnational repression through Thai courts.

In the meantime, the MCMC’s statement said it reserved the right to resume or pursue legal recourse “in the event Murray Hunter breaches any of the terms of the agreement or any laws of Malaysia”.

“MCMC will continue to monitor all harmful or violative publication across all online platforms,” it said.

Hunter told the ABC that the MCMC had now flagged posts on his Substack about Islam that did not even relate to Malaysia.

Blasphemy is a crime in Muslim-majority Malaysia and public discussion of “three Rs” — royalty, race and religion — are considered taboo.

This month, Malaysian journalist Rex Tan was detained and released on bail under sedition laws over a question in which he compared the situation facing Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese population with the Palestinians.

Murray Hunter accused of ‘foreign plot’ against Malaysia

Public interest lawyer and former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission head Latheefa Koya said the MCMC “should never have pursued Murray Hunter”.

“It’s total abuse of money, and power, and finance,” she said.

The Kuala Lumpur-based Centre for Independent Journalism said in a statement that “public institutions like MCMC, funded by taxpayers, should be open to scrutiny and criticism”.

But some prominent Malaysian commentators have heaped criticism on Hunter and defended the MCMC.

Ahirudin Attan, a journalist and blogger who is president of the National Press Club of Malaysia, opined that Thai law “does not give a hoot about whether you’re called an [human rights defender] or you’re white”.

“If you’re based in Thailand and you think it is safe to defame someone or something in Malaysia, you’re wrong,” Attan wrote.

Another blogger, Salahuddin Hisham, went further, accusing Hunter of being part of a foreign “plot” with media outlets such as Bloomberg to spread “malicious falsehood” and “destroy” the reputation of public figures including Malaysia’s king.

Both Attan and Hisham were approached by the ABC for comment.

Malaysia is ranked 88 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index and some argue media freedom, as elsewhere in South-East Asia, is eroding.

Six journalists from Al Jazeera, including five Australians, were detained and their offices raided in 2020 after a documentary from the Qatari broadcaster highlighted the plight of migrant workers in Malaysia during COVID-19 lockdowns.

British journalist Clare Rewcastle Brown, who exposed Malaysia’s multi-billion-dollar 1MDB corruption scandal, was in 2024 sentenced in absentia to two years’ imprisonment for allegedly insulting a member of the Terengganu state royal family.

Malaysian journalist Haresh Deol was assaulted in Kuala Lumpur last year, and he told the ABC it appeared to be motivated by critical reporting about the Football Association of Malaysia.

“What they really don’t want is investigative journalists,” Hunter said of Malaysian authorities, who he said were trying to make an example of him.

Hunter said he would continue to blog about Malaysian politics and was co-authoring a book about transnational repression.

“That sort of gives you something to wake up for,” he said.