THAILAND: Torture by Police and Army Must Stop, Says Amnesty

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Jul 21 2004 (IPS) - Global rights lobby Amnesty International (AI) accused the Thai government Wednesday of failing to stem the widespread use of torture within the country’s detention centres.

The rights group had found little improvement since issuing a report in 2002 on the practice of such human rights violations in Thailand, Irene Khan, AI’s secretary general, told a press conference here.

”As we can see, the situation of torture remains serious in detention centres,” she said.

In that 2002 report, titled ‘Thailand: Widespread abuses in the administration of justice,’ AI accused the police and the army of using torture as a regular means to extract information from people arrested for crimes. It was also used on members of ethnic minorities, migrant workers and refugees.

Khan, who was speaking at the end of a visit that included talks with senior justice ministry and security officials and human rights groups, expressed concern that incidents of torture could worsen.

That stems from the government’s decision to impose martial law to quell the surge of violence in Thailand’s predominantly Malay- Muslim Southern provinces, where close to 300 people have been killed since an attack on an army camp on Jan. 4

The death toll includes 108 Muslim youth who were killed on Apr. 28 when they launched an attack on police posts in the South armed mostly with knives and machetes.

The victims also includes soldiers, policemen, Buddhist monks, teachers and government officials who have been killed by assailants that the government has identified over the past six months as criminal gangs, separatist Muslim groups and Muslim groups with regional links.

Under martial law, the Thai army has been given extra-judicial powers to take into custody suspects linked to the spate of violence in the South and hold them in custody for seven days, after which they are handed over to the police.

During this period, detainees are not given access to lawyers and not all are offered a chance of meeting their families, AI was told during meetings with people in the South who had been detained.

”We are always concerned about incommunicado detention, because experience has shown around the world that when people are held incommunicado it increases the risk of torture and ill- treatment,” said Khan.

In early July, the Law Society of Thailand, took umbrage at the government’s move to try people arrested for violence in the South in military courts.

Dej-Udom Krairit, president of the independent legal body, asserted at the time that detainees will not be guaranteed a fair trial.

General Pisarn Wattanawongkiri, who commands Thai troops in the south, disagreed, stating that security-related cases can be dispensed quickly through military trials while guaranteeing justice for the suspects.

That view, however, was overturned this week, when Bangkok had assured the Amnesty delegation that people arrested in the South under martial law will be prosecuted in civilian courts.

But while welcoming that decision, Amnesty is still troubled at Bangkok’s failure to meet its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which requires countries that have ratified the 1966 treaty to inform the U.N. secretary-general when martial law is enforced.

AI however condemns the attacks by armed groups in the South and endorsed the government’s right to impose martial law ”to provide security for its citizens.”

Yet at the same time, the Thai government cannot abdicate its responsibility to protect the country’s human rights defenders, said AI.

More so in Southern provinces hit by violence, such as Yala, Songkhla, Pattani and Narathiwat, where, according to Khan, ”human rights must be protected with particular vigilance.”

That appeal comes in the wake of the murders or abductions and disappearances of human rights defenders, including Somchai Neelaphaijit, a Muslim lawyer who disappeared on Mar. 12 in Bangkok.

It happened soon after Somchai had exposed the Thai police for allegedly torturing five of his clients while in custody. All five had been arrested for links with violence in the South.

Since Somchai’s disappearance, other lawyers who worked with him at the Muslim Lawyers Association ”feel insecure to pursue cases of human rights violations, because they feel they are under surveillance,” Gotham Arya, head of Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based regional rights lobby, told IPS.

In addition, people who have witnessed violations in the south have been threatened from giving evidence and families of those who have disappeared ”don’t report the cases because they don’t trust the police,” he said.

”The situation in the South is a fertile ground for human rights violations due to the cases of disappearances, torture and threats,” he added. ”We are worried.”

Some senior government members feel likewise, too. In April, Deputy Prime Minister Chaturon Chaisaeng caused a stir among the police establishment when he identified police brutality in the South as a key reason triggering violence in that part of Thailand

Chaturon, who made the charges following a fact-finding visit to the South, said that the police ”must stop torturing, abducting and murdering people.”