With regard to the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2017 released by the U.S. Department of State on 21 April 2018 (Thai local time), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to clarify as follows: 

          1. The 2017 edition of the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices is an annual report released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, and submitted to the Congress as mandated by the Foreign Assistance Act 1961. This year’s report is the 42nd edition since its inception. It covers 195 countries in 6 continents. The reports describe human rights situations in the countries being covered during 2017, neither ranking them , nor prescribing any recommendations. 

          2. In the section of the report on Thailand, references have been made to both the progress achieved and the remaining challenges faced with respect to human rights protection and promotion, as it did with the other countries covered in the report. In the case of Thailand, the challenges include issues which were identified in the previous reports. As for the serious efforts made by Thailand, the report registered increased investigations and punishment of government officials who have been found to have abused human rights, increased punishment for employers of child labour, the establishment of one-stop centres for victims of violence and sexual assault, and the government’s continued effort to address the problem of stateless persons. 

          3. The report is an exercise carried out unilaterally by the United States to present the situations of human rights from an external perspective. Many of the concerns, statistics and case studies cited in the report came from unidentified or unverifiable sources. During the briefing on the release of the report, Mr. John Sullivan, Acting Secretary of State, did not mention the situation in Thailand although 8 countries of concerns and 3 countries with positive examples were mentioned in his remarks. In addition, during the question and answers session, the press did not raise any question on the situation in Thailand. 

          4. Thailand reaffirms our commitment to continue to promoting and protecting human rights and our firm determination to undertake measures in line with our international obligations for the benefits of our people and the Thai society. The Government has declared human rights as a national agenda and has been strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights through various means, for instance; reforms of the legal frameworks and measures pertaining to the area of justice and judicial processes; protection of rights of migrant workers; and continued promotion of awareness and capacity building to the relevant public personnel on human rights related issues. Moreover, the Government also attaches importance to freedom of expression and fully respects human rights in accordance with international practices under the rule of law.