[FACT comments: If there were no photo evidence, we all know govt would be saying nothing...]
Killing of suspect filmed
PM wants explanation of video on YouTube
Bangkok Post: December 16, 2010
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/crimes/211496/killing-of-suspect-filmed
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has called on police to explain how they killed a man suspected of involvement in the drive-by shooting of a 12 year-old boy.
Amanbelieved to be a plain-clothes police officer shoots at a target thought to be highway murder and drug trafficking suspect Charnchai Prasongsil in Ayutthaya on Saturday. The video clip has been posted on the YouTube website.
Mr Abhisit said yesterday his government did not support extrajudicial killings by police.
Video footage purportedly showing police shooting to death their suspect in the fatal drive-by attack on Phokin “Nong Tomee” Deephiu was uploaded on YouTube on Monday.
The youngster died on Saturday of injuries sustained in a road rage attack in Ayutthaya on Dec 4.
Just hours after the youngster’s death, police tracked down one of the suspects in the killing to an apartment near Ayutthaya and shot him.
The clip, uploaded to YouTube by “regist53″, is said to show police attempting to arrest Charnchai Prasongsil, also known as Joke Paikiew, 29, on the night of the boy’s death, near an apartment in Ayutthaya.
Part of the clip shows a man firing two shots at a target lying in a wet overgrown area. The scene is in darkness but voices heard in the clip indicate the target is Charnchai. It is unclear if the man was dead or alive when he was shot but someone is heard in the video as saying that he might be alive.
The video appears to have been taken for official purposes, possibly by rescue workers, as police are heard telling them when to stop filming.
After a policeman shoots repeatedly at the target, he is told to put away his gun. He is named in the video as “Theng”.
Police raided the apartment where their chief suspects, Charnchai and his brother Noppon Prasongsil, known as Jib Paikiew, were staying.
Charnchai was killed by police while Mr Noppon managed to escape. Mr Noppon was caught in Ayutthaya’s Bang Pa-in district on Tuesday.
Mr Abhisit said yesterday his government did not support extrajudicial police killings. “They are not the right, or sustainable solution,” he said.
The prime minister wanted to know what happened on the night Charnchai was killed.
Police, meanwhile, are defending their actions, insisting Charnchai, who was also a suspected drug trafficker, was armed and dangerous, and had shot at them first.
The clip has drawn mixed reactions from the public. Some posters who viewed the video supported the police action while others disagreed.
“How can this be a legal killing when police can point the gun at a suspect who is lying down and shoot him dead?” asked one poster.
Another wrote: “He fired at police so police were entitled to kill him. Suspects can pretend to die, only to shoot police who approach.”
“Think about what he did to the 12-year old boy. He was also a drug trafficker,” another poster wrote. “He deserved to be killed.”
Somchai Homla-or, a human rights activist, said Charnchai’s relatives could appoint a lawyer to have the case heard in court if they think police overacted.
Public prosecutors will also join an investigation into alleged extrajudicial killings as required by law to ensure justice.
Pol Gen Asawin Khwanmuang, senior adviser to the Royal Thai Police Office and acting commissioner of Provincial Police Region 1, who supervised the operation and is seen in the video footage, insisted police did not overreact.
“The police did what they had to do,” he said. “I swear on the honour of my police service that spans most of my life that the police did not overreact and I believe society will understand them.”
He had not seen the clip. He insisted that all officers on the mission were well trained and strictly followed regulations. Police would not have killed the man had they not been shot at.
The arrest of Charnchai’s younger brother Noppon on Tuesday went smoothly and police did not hurt anyone even though he was carrying a gun.
Pol Gen Asawin met Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban at Government House yesterday to report on the operation.
Mr Suthep said later the attack on the vehicle which carried Nong Tomee was an appalling crime and shocked the public. He thanked the police for solving the case and making the arrests quickly.
Constitution Day “funeral” for Insects in the Backyard and free expression
Wise Kwai’s Film Journal: December 11, 2010
http://thaifilmjournal.blogspot.com/2010/12/constitution-day-funeral-for-insects-in.html
What was meant to be an informed and scholarly discussion about censorship and Thailand’s confusing film laws, became a protest yesterday after the Culture Ministry sent a letter threatening to impose stiff fines and even jail time for the organizers of the seminar that was to show Insects in the Backyard at the Thai Film Archive.
The letter came from the Department of Cultural Promotion, which said that “every film screened in the Kingdom must first pass the Film and Video Commission.”
So the seminar, which coincided with Constitution Day, was turned into a “funeral”, during which the elegantly black-clad Tanwarin Sukkhapisit gave a tearful “eulogy” and then a ceremonial “cremation” was held, lighting fire to a disc of the movie. The ashes will be stored at the Thai Film Archive.
Those taking part in the ceremonies included Dorm and Hormones director Songyos Sugmakanan, who heads the Thai Film Director Association, Dome Sukwong, director of the Thai Film Archive, and media activist Supinya Klangnarong.
Instead of Insects, the formerly banned film Tongpan was shown. There was also a panel discussion on the film law, as planned.
A video of the eulogy is at YouTube.
Tanwarin, a veteran indie filmmaker, directs and stars in this family drama, portraying a sad and deluded transvestite father of a teenage daughter and son. The movie has strong depictions of sexual acts as the two youngsters address their confused sexuality and rebel against their cross-dressing dad by entering the prostitution trade. There’s masturbation, a strap-on dildo and a brief glimpse of the director’s penis. But there’s also tears and even a bit of optimism.
A magnum opus by the director, Tanwarin has said Insects in the Backyard was made to address the issues of gay discrimination that persist in Thai society.
The movie was selected for the Dragons and Tigers competition at the Vancouver International Film Festival, where it premiered, and also screened at the recent World Film Festival of Bangkok.
Working with Bioscope magazine’s Indy Spirit project, which earlier this year obtained a local limited release for Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Tanwarin’s been aiming to release Insects under Thailand’s most-restrictive 20- rating, which would limit the film to viewers aged 20 and older only.
This has been met with bureaucratic resistance, with Culture Ministry authorities saying the film is “contrary to morality“. In the bureaucracy’s confusing labyrinth of sub-committees and boards, Insects has already been turned down twice.
Employing kind of double-talk that you might find in Orwell’s 1984, MiniCult says Insects isn’t officially banned, “we just didn’t give it permission to screen“.
According to a story in The Nation today, Insects in the Backyard comes up for appeal for a third time before the Culture Ministry’s full National Film Board on Monday. The story offers a glimmer of hope that the movie might be passed for release.
[Don’t think too much. Isn’t life beautiful!]
I’ll believe it when I get to see it playing at a multiplex near me.
You can keep up with Insects in the Backyard at Facebook.
Update: Rikker has translated the eulogy.
Update 2: The Bangkok Post also had a story.
CENSORSHIP
Film board bans ‘Insects in the Backyard’
The Nation: December 23, 2010
The Culture Ministry’s National Film Board yesterday banned the controversial gay-themed Thai film “Insects in the Backyard”.
Of the 21 board members, 13 voted against the movie because they felt it was immoral and pornographic.
Only three members thought it should be approved.
“If the director does not agree with it, he can petition the Administrative Court,” said Culture Minister Nipit Intarasombat.
And that’s what director Tanwarin Sukkhapisit plans to do.
“I was very upset,” the director told The Nation.
“Insects in the Backyard” is a drama about a transvestite father, played by Tanwarin, whose teenage daughter and son have a confused sense of their own sexuality, and both enter the sex trade. The movie has vivid depictions of sexual acts. There’s also a dream sequence of the son killing his father, which caused a negative reaction from censors.
“The ban is a signal to film-makers that gay-themed films featuring negative portrayals of Thai society will be taboo,” said the transvestite director.
Tanwarin was at Government House for yesterday’s hearing, but left before the board’s announcement to tape a TV show debating the issue.
“During the board’s meeting, I got a few phone calls from one lady on the committee trying to convince me to withdraw the appeal after cutting ‘obscene’ scenes. But she did not mention which scenes,” Tanwarin said.
Tanwarin, whose film had previously been rejected by the Censorship Board, was appealing the earlier decision. The director was hoping to release it for a limited theatre run in Bangkok, and aimed to have it rated 20-, which would restrict it to audiences aged 20 and older.
“Insects in the Backyard” was screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival and at last month’s World Film Festival of Bangkok.
Anyone found selling copies of the banned film will face a fine of Bt200,000 to Bt1 million, Nipit said.
Thai government urged to respect netizens’ rights
Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA): December 15, 2010
http://www.prachatai3.info/english/node/2189
Internet activists in Thailand criticized the government for infringing on the rights of online users and called for amending the controversial Computer Crime Act.
The Thai Netizens Network (TNN) said at a press conference on 9 December that aside from the Computer Crime Act, the administration of Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has been using the emergency decree to justify its censorship of more than 10,000 websites since the decree was imposed after the political unrest in May this year. Bangkok and several nearby provinces remain under the emergency decree.
Arthit Suriyawongkul, a TNN official, said at the press conference that “the blocked websites are mostly where critical and anti-government political opinions are expressed.”
The TNN said that the government is using the Computer Crime Act to “prosecute those with different political views”. Arthit added that Article 112 of the Criminal Code, also known as the lese majeste law, is being used to prosecute government critics and even online intermediaries like Internet service providers, web board moderators and others. Chiranuch Premchaiporn, executive director and moderator of independent news website Prachatai.com is an example; she is facing more than 50 years’ imprisonment if convicted of charges that she violated the Computer Crime Act due to her alleged failure to take down comments from the web board that the government claimed were insulting to the monarchy.
The netizens group listed several recommendations, calling on the government to “uphold the rights and liberty of Internet users and online media”, treat fairly cyberspace intermediaries like Internet service providers and web boards, and protect the privacy of Internet users.
The TNN also recommended the formation of a multi-party committee representing a diverse group of stakeholders and amend the Computer Crime Act, which was enacted in 2007, a year after the military launched a coup.
THAILAND: Anti-human rights forces dig in, regional group warns
Asian Human Rights Commission: December 9, 2010
Report: http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/hrreport/2010/AHRC-SPR-011-2010.pdf
Anti-human rights forces and their allies have re-emerged to take control of key national institutions in Thailand and are digging in to fight for political control of the country, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) warned on Thursday.
In its annual reports on human rights conditions in Asia released to coincide with International Human Rights Day, December 10, the Hong Kong-based regional rights group says that Thailand’s resurgent internal security state exhibits “an original authoritarian style, with more refined public relations and a sharper concern for new types of political and technological threats to its authority” than its predecessors.
The regional rights group identifies its features as including “expanded use of emergency regulations to legitimate all state actions while also producing impunity; failure to meet obligations under international human rights law; the obfuscation of truth and curtailment of justice; and failure of the country’s human rights institutions to perform according to their mandate”.
It expresses concern over the “eliminating of any middle ground in which citizens might express their views without fear of criminalization or violence”.
The 21-page chapter on Thailand, “The internal security state digs in”, includes a review of the events of April-May 2010, in which a government crackdown on protestors in Bangkok left at least 91 dead and over 2100 injured,
The AHRC highlights the use of orders for people to turn themselves over for questioning under the emergency regulations imposed in response to the protests, which it describes as having “over many decades been associated with gross and widespread human rights violations in Thailand”.
It recounts a number of cases of persons arrested and prosecuted under the emergency decree, including the case of protestor and political activist Sombat Boonngammanong, the case of a high school student initially ordered to undergo psychological assessment for participating in a small peaceful protest in Chiang Mai, and the case of Amornwan Charoenkij, a vendor arrested for selling flip-flops bearing the face of the prime minister and political messages.
It also draws attention to how the emergency regulations in Thailand clearly violate international law and are contrary to its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it points out, is consistent with the government of Thailand’s non-compliance with treaties and agreements to which it has committed itself.
“Despite the persistent and flagrant violation of international law through application of these states of emergency, and notwithstanding the calls of human rights organizations, the UN Human Rights Council has remained mute on the rapidly deteriorating situation of human rights in Thailand,” the report states, noting that this is in part because Thailand’s ambassador to the council, an apologist for gross human rights abuses in his country, is currently the council chairman.
The AHRC annual report also takes up a number of cases that are emblematic of the bad and worsening human rights situation in the country.
These include the continuing struggles for justice of the relatives of disappeared human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, victim of alleged police torture and killing during the war on drugs, Kiettisak Thitboonkrong; and Imam Yapa Kaseng, who died in a police vehicle parked at an army compound during March 2009.
More than six years after the police abducted and presumably killed Somchai, the appeal cases remain pending and the one person found guilty of any offence in connection with the case is suspected of having faked his death, the AHRC writes. It also points to renewed threats by ultra-conservative establishment forces on the torture victims whom Somchai represented before his disappearance.
“The case of Somchai Neelaphaijit and his clients is just one instance of how persons who have attempted to challenge the impunity of the police in Thailand have themselves ended up exposed and threatened,” the AHRC says in the report.
“In every case where ordinary citizens and residents of Thailand have taken on the police that the AHRC has documented to date, in whatever part of the country, and irrespective of other factors, the police have escaped culpability and the victims have themselves been made to pay the price for their demands for truth and justice,” it adds.
The report closes with sections on the performance of Thailand’s human rights commission as an anti-human rights agency, and with the crackdown on free expression in the country through the use of lese-majesty and computer crimes laws.
“Independent voices and actors have been targeted in increasingly frequent, increasingly cynical and increasingly ridiculous criminal actions that are having the effect of greatly reducing the opportunities for sensible and informed debate on the serious problems that the country is facing, as well as pushing the judicial system further and further into a system for the pursuit of blatant political ends through superficially legal means,” the AHRC says.
“In today’s resurgent internal security state of Thailand a peaceful protest from the middle ground may land the protestor in jail for at least seven years, and the establishing of a website for the voicing of independent opinion can risk the site director half a century of prison time,” it observes.
“But to abduct and kill a human rights defender carries the prospect of no more than a year or two behind bars—if the perpetrator can even be brought to court—and the assault, torture and sharp-shooting in the name of the Kingdom of red-shirted protestors armed with catapults, fireworks, sharpened sticks and smelly fish is an act of bravery, deserving not of punishment but of promotion,” the report concludes damningly.
Some extracts from the report follow.
THAILAND: THE INTERNAL SECURITY STATE DIGS IN
Extracts from the Asian Human Rights Commission 2010 Report
A state of emergency to re-militarize the state
During the week of 26 April 2010, the authorities claimed that behind the protests in Bangkok was a plan to overthrow the monarchy. The institution of the monarchy is a highly contentious one in Thailand, and in both the language of the Emergency Decree and other state rhetoric, is linked explicitly to national security. In addition to alleging that such a plan existed, the government released a diagram of uncertain authorship showing the alleged involved parties; the alleged participants were wide-ranging, with specific individuals, including former premiers and academics named, as well as broad categories such as the antigovernment protest group.
The release of this diagram was a highly threatening action in an already extremely charged atmosphere. On April 27, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, in his capacity as Director of the CRES, said of individuals and entities named in the diagram, that in any cases in which there was sufficient evidence then an arrest warrant would be issued. If it were necessary, orders forbidding these individuals from leaving Thailand would also be issued. Mr. Suthep did not explicate how much evidence would be sufficient for a warrant, how it would be procured, or if its existence would be made public.
At the same time, the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), an agency that has been run out of an army base under the authority of the Internal Security Operations Command, began using the Emergency Decree to order citizens arbitrarily identified as dissident—or potentially dissident—to “report” themselves and submit to questioning by the authorities.
Such arbitrary orders for interrogation and detention have over many decades been associated with gross and widespread human rights violations in Thailand, and their re-emergence into plain view during the violence in Bangkok speaks to the entrenchment of the internal security state in 2010, and the re-militarization of ordinary policing, security and administrative functions there. In 2010, most individuals received a written order to report the night before being required to go to the army base. Upon arrival at the base, they were typically questioned individually. Most were interrogated for 2-3 hours, although some sessions lasted for up to 6 hours. Many of the questions concerned the acquaintances of the person being interrogated, and if the person knew or was somehow connected to protest organizers. Some of those interrogated reported being asked about the planned activities of the protest movement and lectured about the purported illegality of the protests. The interrog ators appear to have come from a variety of government agencies, including regular police, the army, and the Department of Special Investigation, Ministry of Justice.
Individuals held under the decree have been subsequently charged with a variety of offences under the penal code, as well as with violating sections 9(1)(2) of the Emergency Decree, which prohibits gatherings of groups of five people or more, instigating unrest, disseminating information which might scare the public, or intentionally distorting information to create misunderstanding about the state of emergency to a degree that affects national security, public order or public morals. Some have already been sentenced to periods of one, two or three years’ imprisonment.
International law and international inaction
The arbitrary nature of interrogations, arrests, detentions and charges under the emergency regulations has raised serious concerns about the risk of denial of liberty and abuse of state power in Thailand and point to the likelihood of further grave violations of human rights under the cover of the Emergency Decree and related analogous state security provisions in the coming years. The orders, like those to the police during the war on drugs and those in the context of counterinsurgency in the south of the country, placed officials outside of the ordinary legal system, denying citizens opportunities to question the circumstances of their detention and interrogation and thereby denying them means of redress in accordance with article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
It is doubtful that the protests in Bangkok against which the state of emergency was invoked meet any of the criteria set by international law. Certainly they were threatening to the life of the government towards which they were directed; however, there is no evidence that the life of the entire nation was in any way at risk, and therefore the justification for the state of emergency under article 4 was from the beginning at best tenuous. In any event, the government of Thailand has never taken any discernible steps in response to the recommendations of the Human Rights Committee concerning aspects of the Emergency Decree that are not in compliance with the ICCPR, and indeed it has not taken any discernible steps in response to any of the committee’s recommendations, as discussed below. Therefore, for the foreign ministry to claim that it is working within the parameters of the ICCPR through the Emergency Decree is patently false.
Despite the persistent and flagrant violation of international law through application of these states of emergency, and notwithstanding the calls of human rights organizations, the UN Human Rights Council has remained mute on the rapidly deteriorating situation of human rights in Thailand. This is due in part to the fact that, perversely, the ambassador of Thailand to the Council took over its presidency in the middle of the year, having described the conflict in his country as “settled” (Bangkok Post, 29 June 2010).
The new president of the Council is himself an apologist for the perpetrators of rights abuses. Since taking up the ambassadorship at the Human Rights Council three years ago Sihasak has denied the extent and systemic character of rights abuse in his country, as the AHRC already adverted to in its 2009 annual report. And in 2003, Sihasak was government spokesman during the infamous “war on drugs” of the Thaksin government. Sihasak described the operation, in which thousands of alleged dealers were extrajudicially killed, as being conducted “within a legal framework”. The perpetrators of killings during and after the “war” have never been brought to justice: the difficulties associated with bringing such cases against police and other persons involved in the killings are discussed below, with reference to killings in Kalasin Province, on which the AHRC has worked closely for a number of years.
No truth, no justice, no protection
While various groups and individuals claim to be searching for the truth and justice for the victims of the political violence in Thailand during 2010, the elusive nature of truth and justice in Thailand even in far simpler cases that have been in plain view for a long time speaks to the enormous obstacles for victims and human rights defenders seeking answers and redress.
The case of abducted human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit is in a great many respects emblematic of the institutional refusal to entertain seriously claims to truth and justice of victims of gross human rights abuse in Thailand. More than six years after police abducted Somchai and presumably killed him, his family still has obtained neither the truth—despite the fact that many state officials, including the former prime minister, Thaksin, appear to know what happened—nor justice.
On 24 September 2010 the Criminal Court in Bangkok was scheduled to read out the verdict of the Appeal Court in the case against five police officers related to Somchai’s disappearance, in which one of the five, Pol. Maj. Ngern Thongsuk, was convicted of coercion—there is no offence for the forcible abduction and disappearance of a person in Thailand—and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. However, Ngern appealed the sentence and obtained bail. In the meantime, on 19 September 2008 he mysteriously disappeared in an accident; his family has claimed that he is dead, but human rights defenders familiar with the case suspect that he may have faked his death and with the assistance of other police has changed his identity and gone into hiding, since his body has never been recovered.
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI), Ministry of Justice has meanwhile failed to make any further progress into the case of Somchai’s disappearance, or the alleged police torture of his clients, Mr Makata Harong, Mr Sukree Maming, Mr Manasae Mama, Mr Suderueman Malae and Mr Abdulloh Abukaree. Indeed, the plight of these five men is indicative of the extent to which the criminal justice system works against the interests of victims of gross human rights abuse, even when giving the pretence of the contrary. Of the five, Sukree is still under detention charged with attempted murder, as he awaits a Supreme Court decision on his case. Another, Abdulloh, had been under the DSI’s witness protection programme, but when he returned to his home in Narathiwat Province he too was abducted, and he has not been seen since 11 December 2009. The lives of the others have all been deeply and irrevocably affected by the failure of the state to resolve the case of Somchai, or to bring their torturers to justice.
Although the DSI presented an investigation report on their alleged torture to the Office of the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC), which subsequently called for more than 10 police officers to be investigated, instead of action being taken against the police, one of the remaining victims has instead himself been charged with making a false statement and is facing criminal charges. Pol. Maj. Gen. Chakthip Chaijinda lodged a charge against Suderueman for allegedly giving false information, but the Criminal Court rejected it. Now another case has been lodged and accepted, this time from Pol. Gen. Panupong Singhara na Ayutthaya, who in October 2010 was promoted to the post of deputy police commander for the entire Royal Thai Police. According to Suderueman, both Pol. Gen. Panupong and Pol. Gen. Chaktip were among the group who tortured him and the other four victims.
The case of Somchai Neelaphaijit and his clients is just one instance of how persons who have attempted to challenge the impunity of the police in Thailand have themselves ended up exposed and threatened. In every case where ordinary citizens and residents of Thailand have taken on the police that the AHRC has documented to date, in whatever part of the country, and irrespective of other factors, the police have escaped culpability and the victims have themselves been made to pay the price for their demands for truth and justice.
The cases of alleged forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the northeastern province of Kalasin during and after the so-called “war in drugs” in 2003 are indicative. Out of at least 28 alleged victims of police killings in this period, so far only the case of Mr. Kiettisak Thitboonkrong has reached court, thanks to the tireless efforts of relatives and supporters and due to the presence of an eyewitness who could verify that police denials of responsibility contradicted the facts on the night of his disappearance.
Meanwhile, according to sources of the AHRC, the prosecutor has reportedly recommended that no charges be lodged against any officials over the deaths of 85 men during and after the protests outside the Tak Bai police station–78 in army custody–on the grounds that there is insufficient evidence to hold any one official culpable. This is despite the literally thousands of witnesses that could be called to testify, including over a thousand survivors and hundreds of state officers, and the existence of extensive video footage of the events, which clearly shows officials on the scene shooting, assaulting detainees, and forcing arrested men to lie face down with arms tied behind their backs first on the ground and then in the trucks in which they were transported to an army camp in another province, in which the 78 suffocated and died. The inevitable conclusion to be reached from all of this is that, in a case where the state officers do not actually want to investigate anythin g then of course there is no evidence to be collected or brought to court.
When will the UN downgrade the NHRC?
Since the time that the new National Human Rights Commission was established under the 2007 Constitution of Thailand in 2009, the Asian Human Rights Commission has called for its international standing to be downgraded and for its removal from participation in United Nations forums on grounds that it no longer complies with the minimum standards for national human rights institutions under the Paris Principles, whether in terms of process of selection of the commissioners or their composition. The commissioners include among them a senior police officer, two bureaucrats and a businessman whose sole contribution to human rights prior to appointment was to be named as a violator in a report of the previous commission. None of the commissioners have a track record of advocacy and promotion of human rights, and only one has any credentials to suggest himself to the body.
It is therefore not surprising that the NHRC has failed to play a meaningful role to address any of the serious, persistent and entrenched obstacles to the enjoyment of human rights in Thailand, let alone any of the serious problems that it faced as a consequence of political violence in 2010. Whereas a functioning national human rights institution might have been expected to intervene to a maximum possible extent in the events of April and May, the abject failure of the extant commission to play any kind of meaningful role in these events speaks to what can only be charitably described as its irrelevance to the situation of human rights in Thailand. In fact, the only notable contribution of the NHRC at the time was for one commissioner to make a public statement to the effect that owners of businesses and other persons who had suffered losses due to the destruction of property could submit complaints to the NHRC and the commission would assist them to obtain compensation. Pe rsons without property whose lives were lost or rights otherwise grossly violated in the course of the violence and subsequent crackdown on anti-government protestors were apparently not within the commission’s narrow range of vision; nor do they appear to have fallen within it at any time since.
Defence of the realm through elimination of middle ground
As the political situation in Thailand has become more polarized, not only have state agencies pursued persons perceived as threats to the established order but also persons occupying the middle ground, ultimately with the effect that any middle ground is itself being eliminated. Independent voices and actors have also been targeted in increasingly frequent, increasingly cynical and increasingly ridiculous criminal actions that are having the effect of greatly reducing the opportunities for sensible and informed debate on the serious problems that the country is facing, as well as pushing the judicial system further and further into a system for the pursuit of blatant political ends through superficially legal means.
Almost immediately after the state of emergency came into effect on April 7, the authorities responsible for its enforcement issued orders to block and shut down some 36 websites. Most belonged to or were closely aligned with the anti-government protestors, but among them were the independent news and commentary sites Prachatai and Fah Diew Kan (Same Sky), and its affiliate. An attempt by Prachatai to launch a legal challenge to the block of its site and claim damages was thrown out of court without even a single witness being examined on the ground that the block was in accordance with the ample terms of the Emergency Decree. At time of writing, some of these sites are partly or fully operating, or are operating on mirror sites. Some can be accessed outside Thailand, but not in the country. Persons in Thailand attempting to access not only the main sites of these groups but also archived contents on third party sites are met with a message indicating that the contents are in formed that access to the information at the address has “temporarily ceased” under the Emergency Decree.
As the AHRC wrote in its 2009 report, the director of Prachatai, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, has been made the subject of a series of criminal cases under the Computer Crimes Act and also for lese-majesty under the Criminal Code. On the afternoon of 24 September 2010, immigration police at Suvarnabhumi Airport suddenly detained Chiranuch, who was just returning to Thailand from a conference on Internet freedom. After being detained, she learned that she was to be taken to Khon Kaen province, in the northeastern part of Thailand, in response to a warrant issued by police there. However, the arresting officers declined to tell her the nature of the charges against her. After being driven to Khon Kaen, interrogated and formally charged, she learned of the charges and was released on bail. She must report back at the same police station monthly. Her trial will begin in February 2011 and she faces a possible total sentence of 80 years’ imprisonment. Meanwhile, Prachatai has been forced to shut down its web chat board to avoid possible further charges against its staff or persons using the site.
The lese-majesty charges against Chiranuch were made not over anything that she herself did but for her failure to remove comments that were posted to the site that she manages. These comments, which the AHRC has seen, are not of a violent or threatening manner. What appears to be the crime of the author, rather, is that he or she writes about the institution of the monarchy and specific individuals within the institution in an informal and intimate fashion. Using slang words to refer to the institution as well as specific individuals within it, and coarse words to describe their actions, the author of the comments questions the forms of power exercised by and involvement in politics of the institution. Rather then preserving the distance and untouchable hierarchy between the ordinary citizen and the institution, the author writes about the members of the institution as if they too are ordinary, and subject to observation and criticism. That she has been singled out because o f the character of the website has all along been obvious, and even more so given that Internet service providers hosting sites with allegedly anti-monarchy contents—which have increased dramatically in number in recent times—have not also faced charges but have been asked to cooperate with the government. On the other hand, in a surreal extension of the same principle used to charge Chiranuch and a further sign of the resurgent internal security state, Meechai Ruechupan, an ultra-conservative senior lawyer who has been close to successive military regimes in Thailand and was among the drafters of the regressive 2007 Constitution, reportedly recently told journalists that a petrol station owner who knowing about anti-monarchy graffiti in his toilet failed to remove it could also plausibly be prosecuted for lese-majesty.
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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.
Thailand is free! Well, maybe not….
Political Prisoners in Thailand: December 9, 2010
http://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/2010/12/09/thailand-is-free-maybe/
Well, that seems to be the view of propagandist Thani Thongphakdi, the Acting Director-General of the Department of Information at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has a letter to the Epoch Times, where he says many of the same things that his boss Kasit Piromya and his boss Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva have repeatedly claimed.
Thani writes in response to a report by James Burke in the Epoch Times headlined “Fear, Loathing and a Bit of Shopping in Bangkok,” published way back on 21 November. Thani may be a slow reader or it may be that he needed his bosses to approve his reply, but on 8 December, his letter states: “I wish to set the facts straight…”. A bad start, perhaps, but he says: “to say that there is ‘widespread media and Internet censorship’ in Thailand is sheer exaggeration.”
Really? Has Thani been living under a rock or in another country? Apparently not, for he asserts: “freedom of expression is not without its limits, particularly when it comes to respect of the rights or reputations of others, and protection of national security and public order. Abuse of the media to spread distorted information and hate messages to manipulate and incite violence and hatred among people is against Thai laws and has to be dealt with accordingly.” That’s a line that has been spun for several months.
Most websites that are blocked – PPT included – only fit into these categories if the definitions used are that criticism of the government, military murder, the monarchy and corruption are “hate speech” or are threats to an establishment definition of “national security.” In other words, the government that bans and censors tens of thousands of sites does so in an opaque manner, using whatever definitions that they come up with for their own political purposes.
He then asserts: “to say that there continues to be ‘arbitrary arrests and detentions without charge’ in Thailand is simply not true.” Think here of these cases posted on at PPT: here, here and here (and these are just three examples of arbitrary and even illegal arrests and claims of torture).
And, just for good measure, Thani says: “the Government’s reconciliation plan is making steady progress.” Only Thani and diehard government supporters believe that.
The nice twist to this letter is that the editors of the Epoch Times respond, saying:
Human Rights Watch, in a Nov. 24 release, says, “Thai authorities are using emergency powers to violate fundamental rights and obstruct efforts to bring abusers to justice six months after violent clashes between anti-government groups and government security forces.”
In that same release, Sophie Richardson, acting Asia director for Human Rights Watch, is quoted as saying, “The rolling restrictions on free expression through emergency powers are nothing less than a national regime of censorship, which obstructs prospects for lasting political reconciliation and the restoration of human rights and democracy.”
Reporters Without Borders in a July 29 release says, “Control of media that are affiliated to or support the Red Shirt movement has been reinforced considerably since a state of emergency was imposed in Bangkok and many other provinces. A TV station, radio stations, websites and newspapers have been censored, banned, forcibly closed or prosecuted.”
Touché….
Authoritarians gain ground in Thailand
Bangkok Post: December 10, 2010
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/politics/210575/authoritarians-gain-ground-in-thailand
Authoritarian forces are gaining ground in Thailand and undermining the country’s democratisation, according to the latest assessment by an international rights group.
The Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission (AHCR) states in its annual report for 2010 that the human rights situation in Thailand has been in a state of crisis since the start of the year, with emergency rule in effect in many areas of the country.
The report released on the eve of International Human Rights Day today also states that forces opposed to human rights and their allies had re-emerged to take control of key national institutions. These forces were digging in to fight for political control of the country.
The resurgence of an “internal security state” in Thailand was following a similar pattern to the past but with “an original authoritarian style, with more refined public relations and a sharper concern for new types of political and technological threats to its authority”, the report says.
The regional rights group identified the features of the internal security state as including an “expanded use of emergency regulations to legitimise all state actions while also producing impunity; failure to meet obligations under international human rights law; the obfuscation of truth and curtailment of justice; and failure of the country’s human rights institutions to perform according to their mandate”.
The 21-page report also expresses concern at the elimination of “any middle ground in which citizens might express their views without fear of criminalisation or violence”.
The report focuses on the events of April and May this year when clashes in Bangkok between government forces and red shirt protesters left more than 90 people dead and at least 1,400 injured.
The AHRC describes as “arbitrary” the use of the emergency decree to order people to report to the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation for questioning. Such a practice, it says, “has been associated with gross and widespread human rights violations in Thailand”.
It also draws attention to how the emergency regulations in Thailand clearly violate international law and are contrary to the state’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This, it says, means the government has not been complying with treaties and agreements to which it is a signatory.
The report also takes to task the National Human Rights Commission for its failure to address “serious obstacles to the enjoyment of human rights in Thailand” in general and to attend to the consequences of the political confrontation in particular.
The AHRC called for the Thai human rights body’s international standing to be downgraded and its right to participate in United Nations forums removed.
Human rights commissioner Niran Pitakwatchara responded to the criticisms yesterday by saying the NHRC had always performed its duty in examining and guaranteeing human rights for people, including those who were jailed as a result of recent political rallies and those who had allegedly violated the emergency regulations.
Panel claims red shirt inmates tortured
Investigators find that not all suspects are being treated the same
Bangkok Post: December 7, 2010
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/210009/panel-claims-red-shirt-inmates-tortured
Prayuth Moolsan, a red shirt leader who was responsible for four northeastern provinces, waits on his hospital bed for cancer treatment.He has been accused of razing a provincial hall during the May riots andwill find out today whether charges against him will proceed.
Red shirt detainees are being tortured, forced to confess to crimes and jailed without any chance to defend themselves, a damning report reveals.
The National Human Rights Commission subcommittee on civil and political rights concluded its study into the red shirt detentions in June but its findings were not made public until last week.
The study found the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation had detained 422 people for violating the emergency decree.
Many of them are believed to have been bystanders. About a dozen were aged over 60 years, some were suffering from health problems and others were young students.
The detainees had little access to relatives or lawyers. At least five uneducated and poor protesters were arrested in Chiang Mai and sentenced to 20 years in prison without access to a proper defence, the NHRC subcommittee said.
The report revealed the red shirt detainees had experienced torture and forced confession, arrest without proper investigation and strong evidence, arbitrary detention, and overcrowded detention facilities.
The government-appointed Truth for Reconciliation Commission (TRC) earlier told the Abhisit Vejjajiva government that the release of the red shirt detainees would go a long way to assisting national reconciliation. The proposal was in line with Section 39 of the constitution which stipulates that a criminal suspect should be presumed innocent and not be treated as a convict.
The TRC said in a petition to the government on Nov 15 that there had been excessive charges and arbitrary arrests of those not involved in violent activities. Some suspects had received improper treatment.
The process by the Justice Ministry to secure the temporary release of some of the detainees had also been painfully slow.
Many detained red shirt activists also complain that their plight has been ignored by the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai Party and by pro-reconciliation bodies.
Grass-root supporters said Puea Thai was focusing mainly on high-profile cases against the red shirt core leaders in Bangkok. Also, big-name leaders such as Darunee Kritbunyalai and Jaran Ditapichai, who are still on the run, were not suffering the same hardship as rank-and-file red shirts.
Prayuth Moolsan, a former primary school teacher from Ubon Ratchathani, said there was more talk than action about national reconciliation. This was the case even though the TRC and the NHRC had called for the release of arrested red shirts as a way to heal the rift.
Mr Prayuth, once a red shirt leader responsible for four provinces in the lower Northeast, is due to appear before the provincial prosecutor in Ubon Ratchathani today to find out whether charges against him will proceed. If they do, he will have to apply for bail a second time.
He won his initial freedom from detention with the help of several social activists and the Puea Thai Party, which put up 200,000 baht in bail, after he was arrested for his alleged involvement in the razing of a provincial hall during a red shirt riot earlier this year.
“They said if I requested bail a second time, the bail money could be increased to 700,000 baht. How can I find so much money?” he asked.
The 55-year-old Don Mot Daeng district resident said he shouldered a heavy financial burden as a result of painful chemotherapy to treat his cancer. This was costing him more than 10,000 baht a month.
Most of the red shirt supporters have not received such financial assistance from the pro-Thaksin party for different reasons. One excuse given is that the huge number of red shirts arrested by the government is beyond the capacity of Puea Thai to handle.
Luen Srisupho, a 46-year-old land rights activist from Sakon Nakhon, said he could not attend a parents’ board meeting at Thanpuying Jantima Primary School in Phu Phan district where his children are studying because he was a fugitive from the state.
Mr Luen is wanted for defying the state-imposed emergency decree in Sakon Nakhon earlier this year.
“I was born a poor farmer, the same as my kids,” said Mr Luen by telephone from an unspecified location.
“I just want to leave the most precious inheritance for them. That is education. [As a fugitive] now I’m not sure if I can do that.”
Both Mr Prayuth and Mr Luen asked the government and society to be more sympathetic and tolerant with the several hundred other red shirts still behind bars.
“I face seven to eight charges,” Mr Prayuth said. “But there are about 60others who have not been granted bail. About 20 others are on the run as they fear injustice under the climate of fear as a result of the security laws and other measures.”
He claimed the arson at Ubon Ratchathani was not the work of the red shirts alone.
“We saw flames flickering on the second floor,” he said. “Somebody was already there to set fire to it and then put the blame on us.
“It’s common knowledge that certain businessmen and officials have long desired to get a modern provincial hall.”
THAILAND:
Extracts from the Asian Human Rights Commission 2010 Report
Asian Human Rights Commission: December 8, 2010
A state of emergency to re-militarize the state
During the week of 26 April 2010, the authorities claimed that behind the protests in Bangkok was a plan to overthrow the monarchy. The institution of the monarchy is a highly contentious one in Thailand, and in both the language of the Emergency Decree and other state rhetoric, is linked explicitly to national security. In addition to alleging that such a plan existed, the government released a diagram of uncertain authorship showing the alleged involved parties; the alleged participants were wide-ranging, with specific individuals, including former premiers and academics named, as well as broad categories such as the antigovernment protest group.
The release of this diagram was a highly threatening action in an already extremely charged atmosphere. On April 27, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, in his capacity as Director of the CRES, said of individuals and entities named in the diagram, that in any cases in which there was sufficient evidence then an arrest warrant would be issued. If it were necessary, orders forbidding these individuals from leaving Thailand would also be issued. Mr. Suthep did not explicate how much evidence would be sufficient for a warrant, how it would be procured, or if its existence would be made public.
At the same time, the Centre for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES), an agency that has been run out of an army base under the authority of the Internal Security Operations Command, began using the Emergency Decree to order citizens arbitrarily identified as dissident—or potentially dissident—to “report” themselves and submit to questioning by the authorities.
Such arbitrary orders for interrogation and detention have over many decades been associated with gross and widespread human rights violations in Thailand, and their re-emergence into plain view during the violence in Bangkok speaks to the entrenchment of the internal security state in 2010, and the re-militarization of ordinary policing, security and administrative functions there. In 2010, most individuals received a written order to report the night before being required to go to the army base. Upon arrival at the base, they were typically questioned individually. Most were interrogated for 2-3 hours, although some sessions lasted for up to 6 hours. Many of the questions concerned the acquaintances of the person being interrogated, and if the person knew or was somehow connected to protest organizers. Some of those interrogated reported being asked about the planned activities of the protest movement and lectured about the purported illegality of the protests. The interrog ators appear to have come from a variety of government agencies, including regular police, the army, and the Department of Special Investigation, Ministry of Justice.
Individuals held under the decree have been subsequently charged with a variety of offences under the penal code, as well as with violating sections 9(1)(2) of the Emergency Decree, which prohibits gatherings of groups of five people or more, instigating unrest, disseminating information which might scare the public, or intentionally distorting information to create misunderstanding about the state of emergency to a degree that affects national security, public order or public morals. Some have already been sentenced to periods of one, two or three years’ imprisonment.
International law and international inaction
The arbitrary nature of interrogations, arrests, detentions and charges under the emergency regulations has raised serious concerns about the risk of denial of liberty and abuse of state power in Thailand and point to the likelihood of further grave violations of human rights under the cover of the Emergency Decree and related analogous state security provisions in the coming years. The orders, like those to the police during the war on drugs and those in the context of counterinsurgency in the south of the country, placed officials outside of the ordinary legal system, denying citizens opportunities to question the circumstances of their detention and interrogation and thereby denying them means of redress in accordance with article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).
It is doubtful that the protests in Bangkok against which the state of emergency was invoked meet any of the criteria set by international law. Certainly they were threatening to the life of the government towards which they were directed; however, there is no evidence that the life of the entire nation was in any way at risk, and therefore the justification for the state of emergency under article 4 was from the beginning at best tenuous. In any event, the government of Thailand has never taken any discernible steps in response to the recommendations of the Human Rights Committee concerning aspects of the Emergency Decree that are not in compliance with the ICCPR, and indeed it has not taken any discernible steps in response to any of the committee’s recommendations, as discussed below. Therefore, for the foreign ministry to claim that it is working within the parameters of the ICCPR through the Emergency Decree is patently false.
Despite the persistent and flagrant violation of international law through application of these states of emergency, and notwithstanding the calls of human rights organizations, the UN Human Rights Council has remained mute on the rapidly deteriorating situation of human rights in Thailand. This is due in part to the fact that, perversely, the ambassador of Thailand to the Council took over its presidency in the middle of the year, having described the conflict in his country as “settled” (Bangkok Post, 29 June 2010).
The new president of the Council is himself an apologist for the perpetrators of rights abuses. Since taking up the ambassadorship at the Human Rights Council three years ago Sihasak has denied the extent and systemic character of rights abuse in his country, as the AHRC already adverted to in its 2009 annual report. And in 2003, Sihasak was government spokesman during the infamous “war on drugs” of the Thaksin government. Sihasak described the operation, in which thousands of alleged dealers were extrajudicially killed, as being conducted “within a legal framework”. The perpetrators of killings during and after the “war” have never been brought to justice: the difficulties associated with bringing such cases against police and other persons involved in the killings are discussed below, with reference to killings in Kalasin Province, on which the AHRC has worked closely for a number of years.
No truth, no justice, no protection
While various groups and individuals claim to be searching for the truth and justice for the victims of the political violence in Thailand during 2010, the elusive nature of truth and justice in Thailand even in far simpler cases that have been in plain view for a long time speaks to the enormous obstacles for victims and human rights defenders seeking answers and redress.
The case of abducted human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit is in a great many respects emblematic of the institutional refusal to entertain seriously claims to truth and justice of victims of gross human rights abuse in Thailand. More than six years after police abducted Somchai and presumably killed him, his family still has obtained neither the truth—despite the fact that many state officials, including the former prime minister, Thaksin, appear to know what happened—nor justice.
On 24 September 2010 the Criminal Court in Bangkok was scheduled to read out the verdict of the Appeal Court in the case against five police officers related to Somchai’s disappearance, in which one of the five, Pol. Maj. Ngern Thongsuk, was convicted of coercion—there is no offence for the forcible abduction and disappearance of a person in Thailand—and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. However, Ngern appealed the sentence and obtained bail. In the meantime, on 19 September 2008 he mysteriously disappeared in an accident; his family has claimed that he is dead, but human rights defenders familiar with the case suspect that he may have faked his death and with the assistance of other police has changed his identity and gone into hiding, since his body has never been recovered.
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI), Ministry of Justice has meanwhile failed to make any further progress into the case of Somchai’s disappearance, or the alleged police torture of his clients, Mr Makata Harong, Mr Sukree Maming, Mr Manasae Mama, Mr Suderueman Malae and Mr Abdulloh Abukaree. Indeed, the plight of these five men is indicative of the extent to which the criminal justice system works against the interests of victims of gross human rights abuse, even when giving the pretence of the contrary. Of the five, Sukree is still under detention charged with attempted murder, as he awaits a Supreme Court decision on his case. Another, Abdulloh, had been under the DSI’s witness protection programme, but when he returned to his home in Narathiwat Province he too was abducted, and he has not been seen since 11 December 2009. The lives of the others have all been deeply and irrevocably affected by the failure of the state to resolve the case of Somchai, or to bring their torturers to justice.
Although the DSI presented an investigation report on their alleged torture to the Office of the National Counter Corruption Commission (NCCC), which subsequently called for more than 10 police officers to be investigated, instead of action being taken against the police, one of the remaining victims has instead himself been charged with making a false statement and is facing criminal charges. Pol. Maj. Gen. Chakthip Chaijinda lodged a charge against Suderueman for allegedly giving false information, but the Criminal Court rejected it. Now another case has been lodged and accepted, this time from Pol. Gen. Panupong Singhara na Ayutthaya, who in October 2010 was promoted to the post of deputy police commander for the entire Royal Thai Police. According to Suderueman, both Pol. Gen. Panupong and Pol. Gen. Chaktip were among the group who tortured him and the other four victims.
The case of Somchai Neelaphaijit and his clients is just one instance of how persons who have attempted to challenge the impunity of the police in Thailand have themselves ended up exposed and threatened. In every case where ordinary citizens and residents of Thailand have taken on the police that the AHRC has documented to date, in whatever part of the country, and irrespective of other factors, the police have escaped culpability and the victims have themselves been made to pay the price for their demands for truth and justice.
The cases of alleged forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the northeastern province of Kalasin during and after the so-called “war in drugs” in 2003 are indicative. Out of at least 28 alleged victims of police killings in this period, so far only the case of Mr. Kiettisak Thitboonkrong has reached court, thanks to the tireless efforts of relatives and supporters and due to the presence of an eyewitness who could verify that police denials of responsibility contradicted the facts on the night of his disappearance.
Meanwhile, according to sources of the AHRC, the prosecutor has reportedly recommended that no charges be lodged against any officials over the deaths of 85 men during and after the protests outside the Tak Bai police station–78 in army custody–on the grounds that there is insufficient evidence to hold any one official culpable. This is despite the literally thousands of witnesses that could be called to testify, including over a thousand survivors and hundreds of state officers, and the existence of extensive video footage of the events, which clearly shows officials on the scene shooting, assaulting detainees, and forcing arrested men to lie face down with arms tied behind their backs first on the ground and then in the trucks in which they were transported to an army camp in another province, in which the 78 suffocated and died. The inevitable conclusion to be reached from all of this is that, in a case where the state officers do not actually want to investigate anythin g then of course there is no evidence to be collected or brought to court.
When will the UN downgrade the NHRC?
Since the time that the new National Human Rights Commission was established under the 2007 Constitution of Thailand in 2009, the Asian Human Rights Commission has called for its international standing to be downgraded and for its removal from participation in United Nations forums on grounds that it no longer complies with the minimum standards for national human rights institutions under the Paris Principles, whether in terms of process of selection of the commissioners or their composition. The commissioners include among them a senior police officer, two bureaucrats and a businessman whose sole contribution to human rights prior to appointment was to be named as a violator in a report of the previous commission. None of the commissioners have a track record of advocacy and promotion of human rights, and only one has any credentials to suggest himself to the body.
It is therefore not surprising that the NHRC has failed to play a meaningful role to address any of the serious, persistent and entrenched obstacles to the enjoyment of human rights in Thailand, let alone any of the serious problems that it faced as a consequence of political violence in 2010. Whereas a functioning national human rights institution might have been expected to intervene to a maximum possible extent in the events of April and May, the abject failure of the extant commission to play any kind of meaningful role in these events speaks to what can only be charitably described as its irrelevance to the situation of human rights in Thailand. In fact, the only notable contribution of the NHRC at the time was for one commissioner to make a public statement to the effect that owners of businesses and other persons who had suffered losses due to the destruction of property could submit complaints to the NHRC and the commission would assist them to obtain compensation. Pe rsons without property whose lives were lost or rights otherwise grossly violated in the course of the violence and subsequent crackdown on anti-government protestors were apparently not within the commission’s narrow range of vision; nor do they appear to have fallen within it at any time since.
Defence of the realm through elimination of middle ground
As the political situation in Thailand has become more polarized, not only have state agencies pursued persons perceived as threats to the established order but also persons occupying the middle ground, ultimately with the effect that any middle ground is itself being eliminated. Independent voices and actors have also been targeted in increasingly frequent, increasingly cynical and increasingly ridiculous criminal actions that are having the effect of greatly reducing the opportunities for sensible and informed debate on the serious problems that the country is facing, as well as pushing the judicial system further and further into a system for the pursuit of blatant political ends through superficially legal means.
Almost immediately after the state of emergency came into effect on April 7, the authorities responsible for its enforcement issued orders to block and shut down some 36 websites. Most belonged to or were closely aligned with the anti-government protestors, but among them were the independent news and commentary sites Prachatai and Fah Diew Kan (Same Sky), and its affiliate. An attempt by Prachatai to launch a legal challenge to the block of its site and claim damages was thrown out of court without even a single witness being examined on the ground that the block was in accordance with the ample terms of the Emergency Decree. At time of writing, some of these sites are partly or fully operating, or are operating on mirror sites. Some can be accessed outside Thailand, but not in the country. Persons in Thailand attempting to access not only the main sites of these groups but also archived contents on third party sites are met with a message indicating that the contents are in formed that access to the information at the address has “temporarily ceased” under the Emergency Decree.
As the AHRC wrote in its 2009 report, the director of Prachatai, Chiranuch Premchaiporn, has been made the subject of a series of criminal cases under the Computer Crimes Act and also for lese-majesty under the Criminal Code. On the afternoon of 24 September 2010, immigration police at Suvarnabhumi Airport suddenly detained Chiranuch, who was just returning to Thailand from a conference on Internet freedom. After being detained, she learned that she was to be taken to Khon Kaen province, in the northeastern part of Thailand, in response to a warrant issued by police there. However, the arresting officers declined to tell her the nature of the charges against her. After being driven to Khon Kaen, interrogated and formally charged, she learned of the charges and was released on bail. She must report back at the same police station monthly. Her trial will begin in February 2011 and she faces a possible total sentence of 80 years’ imprisonment. Meanwhile, Prachatai has been forced to shut down its web chat board to avoid possible further charges against its staff or persons using the site.
The lese-majesty charges against Chiranuch were made not over anything that she herself did but for her failure to remove comments that were posted to the site that she manages. These comments, which the AHRC has seen, are not of a violent or threatening manner. What appears to be the crime of the author, rather, is that he or she writes about the institution of the monarchy and specific individuals within the institution in an informal and intimate fashion. Using slang words to refer to the institution as well as specific individuals within it, and coarse words to describe their actions, the author of the comments questions the forms of power exercised by and involvement in politics of the institution. Rather then preserving the distance and untouchable hierarchy between the ordinary citizen and the institution, the author writes about the members of the institution as if they too are ordinary, and subject to observation and criticism. That she has been singled out because o f the character of the website has all along been obvious, and even more so given that Internet service providers hosting sites with allegedly anti-monarchy contents—which have increased dramatically in number in recent times—have not also faced charges but have been asked to cooperate with the government. On the other hand, in a surreal extension of the same principle used to charge Chiranuch and a further sign of the resurgent internal security state, Meechai Ruechupan, an ultra-conservative senior lawyer who has been close to successive military regimes in Thailand and was among the drafters of the regressive 2007 Constitution, reportedly recently told journalists that a petrol station owner who knowing about anti-monarchy graffiti in his toilet failed to remove it could also plausibly be prosecuted for lese-majesty.
[FACT comments: Oh boy, this is rich! Thaksin speaking on democracy, governance or human rights! What a joke! We know he made sure the US would not extradite him back to Thailand, say, in exchange for govt’s cooperation in giving up Viktor Bout.]
Thaksin unfit to speak in US
Bangkok Post: December 7, 2010
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/210075/thaksin-unfit-to-speak-in-us
The US Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe has blundered in its bad decision to invite Thaksin Shinawatra to speak on the subjects of human rights, democracy and governance in Thailand.
The invitation to the ousted former prime minister to address a forum titled “Thailand: Democracy, Governance and Human Rights” in Washington DC on Dec 16 is an insult to all genuine lovers of democracy lovers and human rights advocates in Thailand for one simple reason – he is totally unqualified to speak on such subjects.
It is no wonder human rights defenders here have questioned the US commission’s motives.
Angkana Neelapaijit, the widow of civil rights lawyer Somchai who has been missing since March 2004 and is now presumed dead, couldn’t be more correct when she said the commission should also invite Thai human rights defenders to speak at the forum to counter Thaksin’s address and provide a balanced and fair perspective of the subjects fo discussion.
While still in power in Thailand before the overthrow of his government by a military coup in September 2006, Thaksin was widely accused of abuse of human rights, of free expression and of good governance. Under his order to cleanse Thailand of illegal drugs in 2003, an estimated 2,600 drug suspects, including many innocent people, fell victim to extra-judicial death squads.
The Krue Se mosque attack in April 2004, in which 31 suspected Muslim gunmen were killed, and the Tak Bai tragedy in October of the same year, in which 85 Muslims died during a protest, including 78 who suffocated while being trucked to an army barracks in Narathiwat, also took place during Thaksin’s premiership.
Press freedom during the Thaksin regime was under severe threat with all government-owned media gagged and commercial media critical of his government being given the choice: bow to the government line or face a crippling advertising boycott from the government and major companies associated with prominent government figures .
The US commission’s choice of Thaksin to address the forum is most inappropriate and speaks volumes of the commission’s clear ignorance of the ex-premier’s true background. It appears that the commission is only interested in the situation during and after the March-May protest in Bangkok.
If the US commission is genuinely concerned about human rights, democracy and governance in Thailand, there are several other people who are more qualified than Thaksin to present a fair and balanced information and views about the situation to the commission. Unless, of course, the commission wants only to hear a one-sided story from Thaksin, or has other motives.
As for the Thai Foreign Ministry’s plan to ask for Thaksin’s extradition if he actually shows up there, it would not be an easy task, as the offence he was convicted of and punished for with a two-year jail term by the Supreme Court’s criminal division for political office holders might be seen as a political offence.
And they clearly are not considering the other charges pending against him.
