10 immigration officers transferred in connection with Khmer Muslims in Pattani

[snoop1130]

10 immigration officers transferred in connection with Khmer Muslims in Pattani

By Kornkamon Aksorndej 
The Nation

 

File photo : Pol Lt General Surachaet Hakparn

 

Ten immigration police officers have been transferred to inactive posts due to the presence of 11 young Cambodian Muslims who were caught reportedly practising military combat in an Islamic school in the southern province of Pattani. 

 

Immigration police chief Pol Lt-General Surachet Hakpal said the transfer had been ordered after officials found that nine of the 11 Cambodians had entered Thailand on a tourist visa via Sa Kaew province. 

 

One had a permit to work as a household helper, while another was an illegal immigrant. 

 

Of the 10 immigration officials transferred, seven are from Sa Kaew and the remainder from Pattani province. A fact-finding committee will be set up to investigate the officials

 

The 11 Cambodians are currently being held for interrogation and will be transferred to Bangkok after 15 days. The suspects will be deported if found innocent, but will face prosecution and deportation if they are found guilty, Surachet said.

 

The Cambodians, most of them teenagers, were found in the forest behind the school. 

 

Colonel Pramote Prom-in, spokesman for the Internal Security Operations Command Region 4, had earlier said the Islamic school was raided after officials received a tip-off that a group of men were practising hand-to-hand combat in the premises. 

 

“Their activities were recorded on film as evidence and we only decided to take action after seeing that they were conducting military-style training,” he said. “The school owner has been charged with illegally sheltering foreigners.”

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30363499

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-02-04

[seahorse]

Islam is a peaceful, loving religion. 

[Srikcir]

15 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

seeing that they were conducting military-style training,”

Like calisthenics?

 

[alation]

Be ready Thailand as so the rest of the world as they are ready to strike. The idealistic religion they call Islam where love is shown in there hate for those that don't agree to join. 

Please be vigilant Thailand and see what else this leads to. 

[Srikcir]

In case you miss this relevant article:

Kicking down doors in the deep South

By The Nation

 

 

Last week’s pointless raid on an Islamic school could have much farther-reaching consequences than official embarrassment

 

Soldiers raiding a traditional Islamic boarding school in Pattani’s Mayo district on January 28 forced the students at gunpoint to lie on the ground as they searched for contraband – and came up with nothing apart from 11 Cambodian students overstaying their visas.

 

A witness mistaking the school’s night-time physical exercises for some sort of combat training called in the authorities. The odd hour for exercising was easily explained: Classes start early each day and leave no other time for sports and related activities.

 

But suspicion was enough to bring in a squad of heavily armed rangers and soldiers, all dressed in black. The students, ages 16 to 26, lay prone, hands tied behind their backs. For some reason the troops decided one student should be further constrained in fishing net.

 

It was just one more incident in the South’s 15-year separatist insurgency driving the wedge deeper between the Muslim religious community and the state.

 

These Islamic boarding schools (ponoh, or pondok in standard Malay) hold great esteem in the hearts of the Malay Muslims of a region they call Patani. Beyond being mere centres of learning, the schools are bastions of faith, culture and identity, all of which is cherished and protected. 

 

But, just as long days of study leave no time for exercise, Thai history allows no room for a people so distinctive from the masses.

 

Thai history is the story of a united nation within colonial-era borders, everyone abiding in harmony with one language and a single identity. However, while immigrants from abroad readily assimilated into this mythic narrative, the Malays of Patani have resisted because of the prices demanded – denial of their own cultural roots and acceptance of the falsehood that Thais are superior to all other nationalities in the region.

 

Most people in the border provinces would prefer instead to break away from Thailand and form their own nation or a new province of Malaysia.

 

After the raid, Pol Lt General Surachat Hakparn, chief of the Immigration Bureau, zeroed in on the Cambodian students, ludicrously suggesting they might have been training locals in the use of firearms.

 

It’s an old and often-debunked claim. Certainly the southern insurgents need no such help. The knowledge and means of running a guerrilla war is passed from one generation to the next. And Cambodians and others regularly come to study in Patani, a region the late statesman Surin Pitsuwan referred to as the cradle of Islamic education in Southeast Asia. 

 

Surachate is simply trying to attach some importance to the valueless raid, to cover the state’s embarrassment. He has transferred immigration officials who were accused of letting the Cambodians youths into Thailand. That too is fallacious thinking. The southern border is far more porous than he seems to believe and daily movement of trade goods is so immense that curtailing it would be nearly impossible.

 

For lack of a hard border, people of many nationalities come and go at will, almost all of them completely innocent in their intent. Now, though, with the botched raid on students doing their exercises and amid accusations of false arrest and inhumane military tactics, we suddenly have an immigration problem on our hands.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30363542

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-02-05

[RichardColeman]

Thailand will not admit they have a problem with Islam until some Islamist drives a truck through walking street

[hotchilli]

14 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

Thailand will not admit they have a problem with Islam until some Islamist drives a truck through walking street

If only they would !

[chama]

11 hours ago, alation said:

Be ready Thailand as so the rest of the world as they are ready to strike. The idealistic religion they call Islam where love is shown in there hate for those that don't agree to join. 

Please be vigilant Thailand and see what else this leads to. 

Thailand already has trouble in the south, it makes sense that some of the more ambitious would try to take the entire country by force.

[White Christmas13]

10 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

Thailand will not admit they have a problem with Islam until some Islamist drives a truck through walking street

no they would just rename it to driving street

[elliss]

Muslim quality  tourists welcome to Los,, K45 , also welcome .

  The  big white  hunter , has had his day .

 

 

[Dumbastheycome]

20 hours ago, seahorse said:

Islam is a peaceful, loving religion. 

Yes. The  vast  majority  are. Sadly  there  are extremists  who appeal to  pchycopathic and  disenfranchised individuals to performs acts on their behalf while safely hiding  behind the acts.

Any religious  denomination  that  declares by right of that religion to kill is as  dishonourable !

 

[Solinvictus]

The BJ is taking care of corruption. I guess that's good right? I mean I clear under the mat too sometimes.

 

A Thai guy told me before that higher ups in the military are given bribes in connections with the Muslims down there.

 

Yet again, taking care of the problem just not entirely or with the best approach.

 

Dam this pineapple is sweet though!

[observer90210]

Could they also knock off some of the Immigration people in other areas who are always inventing new rules, harassing, with broad but subtle hints to get a bribe...

[Bluespunk]

On 2/5/2019 at 6:00 AM, alation said:

Be ready Thailand as so the rest of the world as they are ready to strike. The idealistic religion they call Islam where love is shown in there hate for those that don't agree to join. 

Please be vigilant Thailand and see what else this leads to. 

Might want to educate yourself on the history of the region that Thailand has been occupying for over a century now...

 

Also, Thailand has had a small but significant Muslim population [around 5%] for centuries now, a millennia or more according to historical sources ...