Thailand Is Faulted On Rights Abuse

Thailand is faulted on rights abuse

BANGKOK: -- Amnesty International urged Thailand on Wednesday to establish effective ways to oversee and investigate its security forces so that rogue officials can be held accountable for human rights abuses.

The international human rights group said it had heard many complaints of security forces’ torturing, killing and kidnapping people during a crackdown on the drug trade last year, of the war on Islamic insurgency in the south this year and in continuing harassment of human rights workers.

The group’s secretary general, Irene Khan, said at the end of her weeklong visit that such allegations ‘‘expose the need for greater transparency.’’

A government spokesman did not immediately respond to the criticism.

Thailand has set up government commissions to investigate allegations of police abuse, but no official has been prosecuted, Khan said. A panel investigating the deaths of more than 2,500 people in the drug crackdown has yet to produce results. The government says that a small minority of them were killed by the police and that the rest died in gang wars.

Khan, who met with the ministers for justice and the interior, and the head of the National Security Council, also criticized the government for imposing martial law in parts of the Muslim-dominated southern provinces of this predominantly Buddhist kingdom.

‘‘Martial law is a serious measure,’’ she said. ‘‘It needs to be restricted to the absolute minimum.’’

Martial law permits the army to hold suspects in isolation for seven days.

More than 300 people have been killed this year in the south in violence attributed to Islamic separatists. Most of the victims have been police officers and government officials, but the death toll includes 107 suspected militants killed by security forces on April 28.

Khan said that Amnesty condemned the attacks by the militants but that the allegations against security forces of torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances were too serious to ignore.

She said senior government officials had told her that the unrest in the south was partly fueled by the abuse of power by officials. This ‘‘makes it doubly important that any abuse by troops and police be fully investigated and redressed,’’ she said.

The government has also come under criticism for the disappearance, or killing, of 16 human rights activists in the past three years. (AP) BANGKOK Amnesty International urged Thailand on Wednesday to establish effective ways to oversee and investigate its security forces so that rogue officials can be held accountable for human rights abuses.

The international human rights group said it had heard many complaints of security forces’ torturing, killing and kidnapping people during a crackdown on the drug trade last year, of the war on Islamic insurgency in the south this year and in continuing harassment of human rights workers.

The group’s secretary general, Irene Khan, said at the end of her weeklong visit that such allegations ‘‘expose the need for greater transparency.’’

A government spokesman did not immediately respond to the criticism.

Thailand has set up government commissions to investigate allegations of police abuse, but no official has been prosecuted, Khan said. A panel investigating the deaths of more than 2,500 people in the drug crackdown has yet to produce results. The government says that a small minority of them were killed by the police and that the rest died in gang wars.

Khan, who met with the ministers for justice and the interior, and the head of the National Security Council, also criticized the government for imposing martial law in parts of the Muslim-dominated southern provinces of this predominantly Buddhist kingdom.

‘‘Martial law is a serious measure,’’ she said. ‘‘It needs to be restricted to the absolute minimum.’’

Martial law permits the army to hold suspects in isolation for seven days.

More than 300 people have been killed this year in the south in violence attributed to Islamic separatists. Most of the victims have been police officers and government officials, but the death toll includes 107 suspected militants killed by security forces on April 28.

Khan said that Amnesty condemned the attacks by the militants but that the allegations against security forces of torture, extrajudicial killings and disappearances were too serious to ignore.

She said senior government officials had told her that the unrest in the south was partly fueled by the abuse of power by officials. This ‘‘makes it doubly important that any abuse by troops and police be fully investigated and redressed,’’ she said.

The government has also come under criticism for the disappearance, or killing, of 16 human rights activists in the past three years.

--AP 2004-07-21