PRESS RELEASE
ALRC-PL-37-2005

U.N. disappearances group receives formal complaint on missing Thai lawyer

(Hong Kong, April 15, 2005) The U.N. agency charged with investigating forced disappearances received a formal report on missing Thai human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit on Friday.

The wife of the missing lawyer, Angkana Wongrachain, submitted the report to the U.N. working group on enforced or involuntary disappearance after earlier expressing disappointment at the lack of genuine efforts by the government of Thailand to locate the whereabouts of her husband.

Although two deputy prime ministers have recently been deputed to help resolve the case, Angkana has doubted that the truth of her husband's abduction will become known.

Five police have been charged in connection with the case, but concerns persist regarding the progress of the trial and whether or not the mastermind will ever be identified.

"It is believed that senior persons in the government and/or police were behind the forced disappearance and that the five accused¡K were simply carrying out orders," the report to the U.N. body says.
 
The U.N. working group on disappearances is due to meet in Thailand during May.

The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), which assisted in preparation of the submission together with the Bangkok-based Thai Working Group on Human Rights Defenders, has made numerous interventions on Somchai's case.

The Hong Kong-based regional group has drawn the attention of the U.N. Human Rights Committee to the case. The committee will consider Thailand's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in July.  

Its sister organisation, the Asian Human Rights Commission, petitioned His Majesty the King of Thailand over the case on March 11, marking almost one year since the lawyer was removed from his car in Bangkok on March 12, 2004.

"At a time that there are many other reported forced disappearances in the south of Thailand especially, the case of missing lawyer Somchai is of great symbolic as well as practical importance," Basil Fernando, executive director of the ALRC, said.

"If this case, which has received huge national and international attention and involves a prominent person cannot be solved, then what incentive will there be for the families of other victims to come forward?" Fernando said.

"They may face grave security risks for nothing," he said.  

The ALRC is also set to make interventions on the disappearance of Somchai before the annual session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which is currently meeting in Geneva.

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About ALRC The Asian Legal Resource Centre holds general consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage positive action on legal and human rights issues at local and national levels throughout Asia.