PRESS RELEASE
ALRC-PL-44-2005

THAILAND: Stronger institutions needed to protect rights in Thailand, U.N. told

(Hong Kong, July 15, 2005) The Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) on Friday submitted a second report on Thailand to the U.N. Human Rights Committee, stressing the need for stronger and more effective institutions to protect human rights there.

The 48-page report was lodged in advance of the committee's hearings on Thailand scheduled for next week. The committee will consider Thailand's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a core treaty for the protection of human rights under international law.

"The gap between attempts at reform and the realities of policing in Thailand is still very wide. It is this gap that must be recognised and closed if [Thailand] is to more fully comply with the Covenant," the Hong Kong-based rights group said in its submission.

"There are serious conflicts between efforts to modernise institutions and the deeply entrenched feudal habits of its military and police," the report said.

"Public confidence in the police is very low. The average person in Thailand associates a police officer with corruption and violence," it said.

The new report emphasises the roles of the Department of Special Investigation, Department of Rights and Liberties Protection and Central Institute of Forensic Science as core institutions to counterbalance police power in Thailand.

Citing the cases of abducted lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit and slain environmentalist Charoen Wat-aksorn, the ALRC said that the Department of Special Investigation takes too long to conduct inconclusive investigations.  

"The DSI must be far more responsive to the needs of victims and their families," the ALRC said.

Sometimes cases that should be taken up by the department are transferred instead to the National Counter Corruption Commission without explanation.

"The NCCC is charged with addressing corruption, not cases of torture, extrajudicial killing or other gross police abuses," the ALRC pointed out.

As the NCCC had not performed its actual mandate well, it was unlikely to fare any better with these cases, the report said.

The Department of Special Investigation must be greatly strengthened, but Thailand also urgently needs "an independent body to receive, investigate and prosecute complaints against police officers and other state officials", the ALRC reiterated.

The witness protection and victim compensation schemes overseen by the Department of Rights and Liberties Protection also must be greatly enhanced, the ALRC stressed.

"The Department lacks the means to offer very quick intervention in most cases where witnesses may be in need of immediate security or victims of immediate assistance. This is a critical weakness that jeopardises all aspects of the Department's work," the ALRC said.

It points out that after Urai Srineh was brutally tortured in Chonburi during May, police were easily able to visit him at hospital and coerce him into taking silence money.

"At present there are no arrangements for providing emergency compensation to persons needing to pay hospital bills and other expenses associated with recovery from abuse by state agents," the report said.

"Poor persons have little choice but to take whatever they can get, when they can get it, from whoever is offering it," it asserted.

The police force is also the greatest threat to the Central Institute of Forensic Science, as the institute has broken the police monopoly on the management of forensic science and dead bodies in Thailand, the ALRC told the U.N.

Although the institute needs cooperation from the police in order to function effectively, the police aim to undermine and obstruct its work.

Police continue to rely upon confessions rather than scientific evidence, and so the use of torture to extract admissions of guilt persists.

The shortage of forensic scientists and unwillingness of general practitioners to do post-mortem examinations "cause many serious rights violation cases to be improperly investigated", the report said.

It proposed that as many international agencies have contributed to the recovery work after the Indian Ocean tsunami, they should also be called upon to assist in developing forensic science in other areas of Thailand.

The report also urged the government to establish a missing-persons centre under the institute.

The report supplements the earlier 'Institutionalised torture, extrajudicial killings & uneven application of law in Thailand' report submitted by the ALRC in March.

That report was published in the April edition of the ALRC's bimonthly periodical, article 2, under the title 'Rule of law versus rule of lords in Thailand', and has been widely distributed in Thailand and abroad. It is also available on-line at: www.article2.org.

Both the supplementary report and the original submission can be found on the ALRC website: www.alrc.net.

The ALRC will also speak before the committee on Monday, July 18.

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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.