The key findings and analysis of artistic freedom in Thailand from the Southeast Asia Artistic Freedom RADAR, 2025.
Introduction
Thailand’s 2025 pattern of restriction is best understood as “sensitivity management” produced by a distributed ecosystem rather than a single censor. Expression moved through shared-governance sites—permit-dependent film/TV production, city-supported cultural centres, hotel venues, campuses, and public beaches—allowing for multiple choke points. At these junctures, restriction can occur without a formal ban: a shoot is relocated, a work is altered, a talk is investigated, or a public-space activity is prohibited.
Geopolitical tensions sharpened these sensitivities. Thailand–Cambodia tensions intensified around temple-linked contested zones and escalated into armed clashes from mid-2025. The subsequent damage to temples and monuments prompted UNESCO interventions. In this context, cultural work touching heritage, history, and identity could become politically combustible even when framed as “non-political.” The border dispute also generated major domestic political fallout in Thailand. A leaked June 15, 2025 phone call between Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Cambodian leader Hun Sen sharpened nationalist criticism at home, helped destabilise the governing coalition, and was followed by court and anti-graft proceedings that culminated in the Prime Minister’s removal from office (Thepgumpana).
This wider environment is reflected in Thailand’s media and freedom rankings. In the 2025 World Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders places Thailand 85th out of 180 countries. Freedom House rates Thailand “Not Free” in Freedom in the World 2025, with a score of 34/100. These indices do not map directly onto the case set, but they help situate the country’s cultural restrictions within a broader ecology of constrained expression.
Impact on artistic freedom: where pressure concentrates
The 13 cases documented in Thailand in 2025 occurred across several sectors instead of being confined to a single artform. Visual art and heritage-linked disputes were especially prominent, yet film, performance, digital culture, academic speech, and literary status all appear in the dataset. This spread matters because it shows not one censorial arena but a broader environment in which different gatekeepers—venues, municipalities, ministries, universities, and committees—can each become points of restriction.
The result is not a total ban, but an interruption of participation or access: a shoot is moved, an artwork is repositioned or altered, a beach event is denied, or a talk becomes the object of complaint. The methods are therefore frequently infrastructural rather than overtly penal, and occur after production has commenced. Further the targeting occurs after official permission has been granted, and the work is already in production or in the public space. Two cases, the Bangkok Arts and Culture Centre (BACC) exhibition and the production of Netflix’s EVL illustrate how this looks in practice.
How restrictions are framed
BACC’s Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity brings together works by artists from “regions with cultural and autonomy demands”, including works by exiled artists such as Tenzin Mingyur Paldron (Tibet), Mukaddas Mijit (Uyghur region), and the Hong Kong duo Clara Cheung and Gum Cheng Yee Man. In a case that made international headlines and mapped the cross-border infrastructures of authoritarian power, the exhibition remained open only after removals and redactions, including obscured artist identifiers and switched-off monitors, following reported pressure from the Chinese Embassy, transmitted through Thai institutional channels (BACC, 2025 and McPherson, 2025).
The Netflix series, EVL obtained Thai government approvals to shoot in the city of Samut Sakhon. However, the Samut Sakhon Fisheries Association sought to block production, arguing that the portrayal of illegal labour and drug issues would harm the image of Thailand’s fishing sector. Despite having a valid filming permit, the objections contributed to the relocation of the shoot, and escalation toward further reviews of production by the authorities.
Four cases in the database were targeted for interrogating political or state issues. Phuengboon Jaeyen, a tattoo artist was detained over his 2020 graffiti of the phrase “Prathet Thuai,” (“The Country of Servants”) at a traffic light in Chiang Mai. The Independent Political Satire Group of Thammasat University were surveilled and intimidated. Suchart Sawatsi’s National Artist in Literature award and benefits were retracted due to his criticism of the state, and the aforementioned BACC show, which touched on political and geopolitical issues.
However, restrictions in 2025, as in previous years, often turned not only on what expression “is,” but on how it could be made actionable (or objectionable) through framing. The gap between intention and accusation is clear in the case of academics, Pipad Krajaejun and Kangvol Khatshima, and that of actor, Yem Srey Pich.
Pipad Krajaejun and Kangvol Khatshima had hosted two academic talks on Khmer-related history on the Facebook page Critical Archaeology upon which they faced formal complaints routed through the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation to Thammasat and Silpakorn Universities. The complaint asked that the lecturers be investigated for speaking on “historically sensitive issues and national security.” In the second, Cambodian actress Yem Srey Pich–lead actor in the Thai historical film Phra Ruang Mahasuek Sukhothai (Phra Ruang: Rise of the Empire)—posted a photo of herself wearing what some viewed as a modernised Thai-style dress on social media. When a Thai commenter wrote that it was “Thai dress,” she replied: “That’s Cambodia custom.” The exchange circulated widely and prompted online criticism and calls for a boycott of the film among some Thai social-media users.
In both cases, relatively limited acts—an academic livestream and a social-media post—became sites of conflict because they were read through the lens of wider disputes over heritage, sovereignty, and Thai–Cambodian historical ownership. As border tensions escalated in 2025 and nationalist rhetoric intensified in the wake of the Paetongtarn–Hun Sen phone-call leak, apparently minor cultural gestures became easier to record as threats to national integrity or historical truth.
Who initiates pressure and how it travels
The “first move” in 2025 often came from outside the government: 9 out of 13 cases began with non-state actors such as petitioners, lobby groups, online publics, or venue stakeholders. The BACC case shows that foreign state pressure can enter the challenge chain early and shape downstream Thai institutional decisions (McPherson). EVL reflects interest-group initiation that then moved into formal correspondence and review channels. Phuket’s Thai‑Palestine Solidarity Club petition against a planned public Rosh Hashanah celebration and Tashlich rites on Patong and Rawai beaches illustrates how local mobilisation over geopolitical issues can produce public-space restriction (Bangkok Post). After the group petitioned the Phuket governor on 19 September 2025, authorities and municipalities stated that no authorisation had been granted for religious activities on public beaches because of the issue’s sensitivity, and urged that any ceremony be moved to private venues.
How pressure escalates
State actors remain decisive however, using methods such as arrests, surveillance, fines and sanctions. The 4 state-led cases point to a distinctly low tolerance threshold for political commentary. Three of these–National Laureate Suchart Sawatsi, tattoo artist Phuengboon Jaeyen, and the Independent Political Satire Group of Thammasat University–each faced direct intervention by authorities in response to expressions read as politically charged or as challenging state-linked authority. In these cases, the state appears most willing to act openly when speech touches the monarchy, mocks public power, or is framed as a security issue. In the fourth case, that of cultural heritage sites along the disputed border between Thailand and Cambodia, it is not commentary being disciplined, but cultural sites themselves that become casualties of armed conflict.
In the 7 cases where the target was an artwork or event, pressure was often soft, indirect, and pre-emptive— protests, relocation, alteration,or access restriction—rather than a straightforward legal ban. Soft restriction against works/events is visible in the EVL shoot disruptions, BACC exhibition alterations, and the Phuket prohibition of public-beach ceremonies—outcomes achieved primarily through access and governance rather than courtroom adjudication. The one exception, and a serious one at that, is the damage suffered by heritage sites, including the Preah Vihear Temple (which was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2008 as a cultural property located on Cambodian territory, UNESCO, 2008), as a result of the border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia.
When the target is the creator or presenter, the methods become more coercive and may escalate to become more harsh: Thammasat political satire group’s allegations of CCTV installation and a watch list justified under “national security,” signalling deterrence and intimidation tied to a major student cultural event, the detention of the tattoo artist and the withdrawal of honours and monetary benefits to the national lauret. These enforcement-linked actions create direct personal cost to the artists.
Conclusion
Thailand’s 2025 case pattern shows an adaptation of control, not a decline: expression is increasingly governed as risk management (diplomacy, reputation, security, morality) rather than treated as a rights issue. In many cases, the state does not need to censor first. Petitions, boycotts, and sectoral lobbying do some of the work, and gatekeepers such as venues, permit offices, committees, and universities then translate that pressure into decisions that look administrative or practical rather than openly censorial.
This diffusion blurs accountability—there is no single decision-maker to challenge, even as outcomes are clear: diplomatic sensitivity drove removals and redactions at BACC, reputational-economic objections disrupted EVL filming, and “national security” framing enabled surveillance and investigation pathways. When soft gatekeeping is insufficient, coercion remains available through mobility controls and administrative sanctions, shifting costs onto creators and incentivising pre-emptive self-censorship—especially around heritage and identity amid heightened Thailand–Cambodia tensions.
References
Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Constellation of Complicity: Visualising the Global Machinery of Authoritarian Solidarity, 2025.
“Fears over Jewish New Year event in Phuket”, Bangkok Post. 20 Sept 2025.
Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2025: Thailand
McPherson, P., & Wesshasartar, N. “Thai gallery removes China-focused artworks after “pressure” from Beijing“ Reuters 8 Aug 2025.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre. (2008a). Preah Vihear. Retrieved February 6, 2026.
Reporters Without Borders, 2025 World Press Freedom Index: Asia-Pacific.
Wesshasartar, N., & Wongcha-um, P, “Thousands of Cambodians join government rally as border dispute with Thailand intensifies”, Reuters, 18 June 2025.
Patporn (Aor) Phoothong
Patporn (Aor) Phoothong is a researcher focusing on peace education via peace museum and archives. Her current research is a feasibility study for the establishment of a peace museum connected to the deep south of Thailand. She has also co-founded an initiative to establish a 6 October 1976 Massacre Museum and Deep South Museum and Archives’ Initiative. Her focus has been on using museums and archives as a tool for conflict transformation and ending the culture of impunity. In addition, Aor also serves as a consultant for an international development organization specializing in violent extremism, gender dynamics, and peace process.
