Thread: Thailand: No truth, no justice, no protection - Asian Human Rights Commission

The Asian Human Rights Commission has released its 2010 Report in Thailand. It's a damning indictment of the current situation in the country.

Available here, in pdf format;

http://www.humanrights.asia/resource...R-011-2010.pdf

An indication of the conclusions of the report can be seen from the chapter headings;

• THAILAND: The internal-security state digs in
• A state of emergency to re-militarize the state
• International law and international inaction
• No truth, no justice, no protection
• When will the UN downgrade the NHRC?
• Defence of the realm through elimination of middle ground

From the Introduction:

THAILAND: The internal-security state digs in

In its 2009 annual report, the Asian Human Rights Commission described the emergence of a new internal-security state in Thailand, which began to consolidate following the September 2006 coup. This state is characterized by the firm re-entrenchment of regressive anti-human rights forces and their allies in all parts of government, including in agencies ostensibly established to protect human rights. The resurgence of the internal-security state is reminiscent of its forebears of earlier decades, exhibiting an original authoritarian style, with more refined public relations and a sharper concern for new types of political and technological threats to its authority.

When 2010 began, the human rights situation in Thailand was already in a state of crisis, with continued martial law and emergency rule in the three southern-most provinces, the recent conviction of Darunee Charnchoengsilpakul for speech alleged offensive to the monarchy, pending charges against Chiranuch Premchaiporn, webmaster of the independent news site Prachatai, and a persistent lack of resolution and continued impunity in the cases of Somchai Neelaphaichit and Imam Yapa Kaseng, to name a few cases of special concern to rights defenders.

The events of April-May 2010, in which a government crackdown on protestors in Bangkok left at least 91 dead and over 2100 injured, rapidly deepened the crisis. Among the features of the entrenched internal-security state are 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. Also of great concern in 2009 was the eliminating of any middle ground in which citizens might express their views without fear of criminalization or violence.

The final paragraph:

Thus, 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.

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.