(Bangkok) – Thai authorities should criminally investigate the alleged torture and ill-treatment of conscripts in the Royal Thai Navy’s Marine Division, Human Rights Watch said today. The Thai government and military should end the longstanding practice of hazing and other brutality against conscripts and prosecute wrongdoers according to the law, regardless of their rank.
On June 22, 2026, Private Panuwat, whose full name has been withheld for security reasons, alleged in a media interview that on May 30, a group of senior conscripts had beaten him and other conscripts, stripped them naked, whipped them with belts, and burned them with hot wax and a cigarette lighter in a hazing activity at the 1st King’s Guard Infantry Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment, Marine Division in Chonburi province. The Royal Thai Navy soon announced disciplinary measures against those allegedly responsible but did not open a criminal investigation.
“The ordeal Private Panuwat and other conscripts experienced shows that the Royal Thai Navy keeps breaking its promises to end torture and other brutality in the barracks,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities need to protect conscripts by fully investigating and criminally prosecuting all those responsible for such heinous hazing, including officers who permit this to happen under their command.”
On June 24, the Royal Thai Navy stated that an inquiry had found that 15 senior conscripts had been involved in acts of violence against Private Panuwat and other conscripts, and ordered them detained for 30 days as punishment. Three other senior conscripts who were present were detained for seven days for not stopping the assault.
Two noncommissioned officers face 10-day disciplinary detention and have been stripped of eligibility for annual merit rewards for failing to report the incident to the unit’s commanding officers. The Royal Thai Navy has since transferred Private Panuwat to a new unit.
On June 26, the Royal Thai Navy spokesperson, speaking at the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand’s workshop on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, said that incidents of violence within military units “serve as a reminder that maintaining discipline must go hand-in-hand with respect for human dignity and human rights.”
The spokesperson said that the Royal Thai Navy had applied these lessons “to improve oversight processes, command and control, personnel care, as well as the complaint reception and fact-finding systems to prevent similar incidents from recurring.”
However, without a criminal investigation and appropriate prosecutions, the Royal Thai Navy is failing to comply with Thailand’s Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, which took effect in February 2023, Human Rights Watch said. Section 34 of the act specifically provides that the Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases has jurisdiction over cases in which the alleged offender was a member of the military.
The failure to prosecute the alleged abuse also violated Thailand’s obligations under the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which Thailand ratified in 2007. In November 2024, the UN Committee against Torture, which monitors state compliance with the convention, expressed concern over torture and ill-treatment—in some cases resulting in death—of conscripts in Thailand.
“Concerned governments should raise the Thai government’s mistreatment of conscripts and its failure to criminally prosecute alleged torture during the review of Thailand’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Council in November,” Pearson said. “What happened to Private Panuwat and other conscripts at the Marine Division should be the last case of barracks brutality in Thailand.”
