Thais Scramble To Allay Tourist Fears After Recent Assaults

[number9999]

Choochart Suwannakom, commander of the national Tourist Police:

Choochart played down the recent killings, saying, "I believe security in Thailand is better than in many other countries." He also said that some of the attacks were occasioned by the behavior of the women themselves. Under a front-page photograph of a Western woman in a skimpy bikini, The Bangkok Post quoted Choochart as saying, "They tend to choose a quiet spot away from other people, take off the bikini and sunbathe. That's when the attackers strike."

It's an utter scandal what this @ssXc#@ said....

LaoPo

Its very sad but i cant see anything wrong with commanders comment - its just stupid for

any girl to go alone to secluded place - here in UK in USA anywhere - it does not excuse

offense but surely woman on their own if they are so stupid as to do this should at least be

warned to think twice here UK USA anywhere in world - I have 4 daughters and of course

this could happen to any of them anywhere in world not just here and if parents do not constantly

drum message into their kids no amount of political correctness is going to stop it happening

over and over again everywhere in world - my deepest condolenses to family of this

girl

[Plus]

They actually advertise secluded beaches and "hideaways" here, it's an attraction.

[MustaphaMond]

and!!! (as in "as well as") be of the opinion that this was a heinous crime perpetrated on an innocent

..............................girl.

Its an opinion and quite prevalent in Thailand. They know where the airport is at anytime they find Thais and their culture unbearable!

And why are you calling a 27 year old woman a girl? This is all part of it , don;t allow women to be women, thay must either be girls or too old to want to have sex with , right. Isn't this language all about not allowing women equal status , relegating them to " Girl" ( but only if they are considered sexually attractive)

Disgusting, why are we going backwards on this!!!!

[MustaphaMond]

Its very sad but i cant see anything wrong with commanders comment - its just stupid for

any girl to go alone to secluded place - here in UK in USA anywhere - it does not excuse

offense but surely woman on their own if they are so stupid .......................

Uhh .....Hanna was stalked for 3 days

http://www.phuketgazette.com/news/index.asp?fromsearch=yes&Id=6346

Akkaradej allegedly told police that he had watched Miss Backlund and her friend Emma Stenman at Mai Khao Beach for three days until on Saturday he spotted Miss Backlund sunbathing alone.

He approached Miss Backlund from behind, with a kitchen knife in his right hand taken from his home in Thalang, police said.

March 28th, 2008 ,

Letter to the Editor,

Hanna Backlund finds herself ultimate victim of Thailand's fondness of the ol' bait and switch routine. She trusted the ads that told her Thailand was a paradise where walking the beach wearing perfectly legal garments, was safe and acceptable. And because tourists aren't widely known to be cited for sunbathing topless, she felt comfortable doing so on the first days of her vacation as is done on every single beach in Phuket.

That was the Bait.

The Switch is: How could she could seriously expect NOT to be murdered in the most brutal fashion imaginable? One of the supreme chauvinists was quoted internationally. ".....And then they attack."

(Let's remember, Mr. Tankae claims he stalked over 3 days.)

Because she revealed her body. In the middle of the day. On a beach void of crowds, on a site within sight of her bungalow's umbrellas.

As is the norm all over Phuket, at hundreds of tourist destinations, advertised in countless brochures, with beaches showcased as the greatest attraction, women and men are half naked, attired as they please.

For Hanna understanding this normal behavior to be acceptable, for believing the hype-for trusting Thailand-she was assassinated.

I don't believe the accused Mr. Tankae, or whomever, wanted a sexual encounter.

A heavy set man doesn't need (and a group, certainly not) a big, gigantic knife to rape. It's needed for something else entirely.

It is called hate.

WHY she was killed is what we need to look at.

More police, more TV cameras, more money will not help.

This is sexual terrorism and it is an idealogical war aimed at waging control over sexuality. The foot soldiers hypersexualized through repressive brainwashing, directed to aim the violence at women.

Spread by fundamentalists of patriarchal religions, it's happening all over the world.

And through it all last week, the damage to the tourist industry is what the officials are publicly wringing hands over. What the press covered.

Not Hanna's lost life and her frightened suffering or the horrendous pain her family must forever remember. Barely mentioned is her unimaginably horrible, utterly preventable death.

Or the unfamiliarity women have for solitude, our loss of freedom.

Would the press please keep interested parties informed so as to attempt effective lobbying with this case. I'm sure there might many hoping that the duly-tried guilty is/are given the maximum penalty.

I believe it is penalty of death for pre-meditated murder, no?

[Plus]

Mustapha, little forum hint - are you aware that your large size text is the biggest give away? The option is there only to weed out potential lunatics who will use either that or capitals only. Use it at your own peril - it's eats away at your credibility.

[donna]

number9999, i do find your constant 'stupid' comments to be quite offensive. i do not believe that the victim was stupid at all. she thought she was safe on a beach not so far from her bungalows. what is so stupid about that?

how would you feel if it were one of your daughters murdered in such a fashion to look on a website and see your daughters being called stupid for taking a walk along a beach in broad daylight? put yourself in the shoes of the victims family, who could very well be reading this thread, and ask yourself how YOU would feel to have some stranger calling your recently murdered daughter stupid.

not very nice is it.

[MustaphaMond]

Nothing will change over this murder, nor any of the other ones. Thailand will only make changes when the money stops, and it will be too late. TIT.

Yes you are of course correct. But in the interim, as I suggested earlier, is there anything we can do to get the message across. Do we need to write to various people, go on western forums, write to western media, governments, take a full page advert in the Bangkok Post warning tourists, or (you'll like this one) protest outside parliament house, various embassies The U.N.. I don't know. Just ideas. However these things need to be done as a community/group or it will fall flat. In lies the problem. How much do we really care to get out of our comfort zones, maybe risk deportation or something like that to get a result.

We could have a "Keep your Hands Off Wersteners" campaign.

Yeah I know what most of you are thinking...it's a pipe dream. Next......................!

Yes Barky we can do these things , all good ideas and we must, we all must l contact our respective state dept.s and inform them of the realities -how dangerous it is here, the drivers, the rapists, the scams etc ( don't forget the animals) then when the money starts to go down then we will have change.

And we must as a group lobby this case to the death penalty

Everyone please remember, he stalked her for 3 days waiting for the opportunity to kill her.

I'm curious, was he trying to take off her head??

I have a GUT feeling this was actually a planned out assault and others may be in on it .

[MustaphaMond]

Mustapha, little forum hint - are you aware that your large size text is the biggest give away? The option is there only to weed out potential lunatics who will use either that or capitals only. Use it at your own peril - it's eats away at your credibility.

Please , eat away !!!

[Plus]

If you don't care about credibility of your posts at all it could be considered a wind up and trolling, which is against forum rules.

Seriously, we don't need people shouting just for the sake of it.

[farang prince]

Mustapha, little forum hint - are you aware that your large size text is the biggest give away? The option is there only to weed out potential lunatics who will use either that or capitals only. Use it at your own peril - it's eats away at your credibility.

Please , eat away !!!

Jeez, Plus, I actually like the larger font. Easier to read for us old gits. Besides, I think Mustapha has some very good points and he certainly is not a troll or flamer.

Edited March 29, 2008 by farang prince

[MustaphaMond]

I use larger fonts to make a point,

and I also seem to be losing my eyesight.

OK enough Blither- Blather...

Just posted

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...=0#entry1897236

Posted in Phuket forum as I guess that is where the hearings will be??

OK who wants to, as a gang, attend hearings and attempt to get the max penalty for the..... boy.

Will need Thai speakers to assist for sure

[Plus]

... I think Mustapha has some very good points and he certainly is not a troll or flamer.

I hope not.

As for good points - two posts earlier all I could read in the first paragraph was "stupid" repeated three times in super large size. I didn't bother to read the rest.

Generally you can increase/reduce font size in your own browser, even in IE. Why impose it on everyone else, I, personally, don't suffer from poor eyesight yet.

[stevenl]

I would like to make a further comment to mr. dupont since he agrees more or less with the commander of tourist Police with his disgusting comments towards Farang women and the way they dress, on the beach.

No, that is not what was said. The objection was to the namecalling.

[stanley2550]

Perhaps they should hand out a can of mace with that whistle!

[stanley2550]

In thailand it get that police a raise in rank and pay

[MustaphaMond]

And the New York Times Picks it up....

( Notice how all reports have Thai officials frantic at possible money losses., not the violent loss of life . Murderers lose face at harming the country's rep, not butchering people.) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/world/as...amp;oref=slogin

BANGKOK — The Thai police say they will start handing out whistles to foreign women who visit this country after the latest in a long series of periodic sexual assaults and killings.

“We will issue the whistles first in risky areas such as beaches, valleys, mountains, national parks, waterfalls and other risky spots,” Choochart Suwannakom, commander of the national Tourist Police, said in an interview last week.

( That leaves...what, the malls?)

While Thailand is generally safe for foreigners, recent sexual assaults and killings of foreign tourists have prompted embassies to issue warnings and have led to fears among Thai officials that the country’s attractiveness as a tourist destination could suffer. Tourism is the biggest earner of foreign exchange for Thailand, bringing in more than $16 billion last year, accounting for as much as 6 percent of gross domestic product and generating the most jobs of any industry.

Last week, the police arrested a 31-year-old laborer accused in the March 15 fatal stabbing of a Swedish tourist, Hanna Backlund, 27, on a secluded beach in Phuket, one of the country’s leading resort areas. The laborer, Akaradech Tangae, told the police that he had tried to rape Ms. Backlund but that “she resisted, and I had to kill her,” Reuters reported.

Commander Choochart played down the recent killings, saying, “I believe security in Thailand is better than in many other countries.” He also contended that some of the attacks were occasioned by the behavior of the women themselves. Under a front-page photograph of a Western woman lying on a beach, The Bangkok Post, an English-language daily newspaper, quoted Commander Choochart as saying: “They tend to choose a quiet spot away from other people, take off the bikini and sunbathe. That’s when the attackers strike.”

On Saturday, a 24-year-old Indian tourist was stabbed to death while trying to break up a fight during the popular full-moon party on the island of Koh Phangan. On Sunday, The Bangkok Post reported that the police had admitted failure in their investigation of the widely covered killing in 2000 of Kirsty Jones, 23, a British backpacker who was strangled in a guesthouse in Chiang Mai Province, in the north.

“The murders come as a wake-up call for the authorities, who seem to show no concern about the shortage of investment in the tourism industry or the political will to improve the safety of tourists,” the newspaper said.

More than 14 million tourists visited Thailand last year, by an official count, and the number of arrivals continues to climb. But Thai tourism is an industry built on image — beaches, temples, elephants, smiles — and anything that threatens that image is a serious offense.

When two fishermen were arrested in January 2006, suspected of raping and killing a young British woman at Koh Samui, another of the country’s leading resorts, the prime minister at the time, Thaksin Shinawatra, said, “They have done huge damage to the country.”

After confessing and quickly being convicted and sentenced to death, one of the men, Wichai Sonkhaoyai, 24, said, “I apologize for ruining the country’s image.”

In the past, tourist arrivals have fallen quickly after reports of bird flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and terrorism elsewhere in the region. The most notable setback in recent years was the tsunami in December 2004, which took the lives of more than 5,000 foreigners, mostly in and around Phuket. After each of these blows, tourism recovered and resumed its growth.

But the danger of crime, including sexual assault, along with a violent Muslim separatist insurgency in the southern provinces, continues to draw warnings from foreign governments. Last week, the State Department urged Americans to postpone travel to southern Thailand after a bomb exploded at a hotel that is popular with foreigners. Two people were killed and 14 wounded.

“We continue to receive reports of sexual offenses committed against foreign women and men,” the British Embassy warns on its Web site. “Female travelers in particular should maintain a high state of personal awareness during their time in Thailand.” Two other British women were raped in separate incidents in January 2006, the same month the woman was killed on Koh Samui, the warning noted.

Several killings of tourists have been reported in a little more than a year. In February 2007, two Russian women were fatally shot while sitting in beach chairs at Pattaya, a popular resort. A 24-year-old laborer confessed, saying he had intended only to rob the women but “had to shoot them as they were yelling and screaming.”

A 32-year-old Israeli tourist was stabbed to death during the full-moon festival in Koh Phangan last April. A gang of teenagers, including the son of a local politician, are the chief suspects. In November, a 27-year-old Japanese woman was robbed and stabbed to death while visiting Sukhothai, an ancient city and former capital, during the Loy Krathong water festival. The police say they are still investigating that killing.

In January, a Canadian tourist was shot dead and his wife was wounded outside a pub in the northern city of Mae Hong Son. A policeman confessed but said he had acted in self-defense when the couple assaulted him.

Ms. Backlund was killed while walking alone on a secluded beach. A police officer described the suspect as a peeping Tom who “loves to bring friends to this remote and quiet beach to look at naked tourists.”

Gov. Nilan Gallayanamit of Phuket promised to increase security. “This case has really hurt Phuket’s reputation,” he said.

[farang prince]

Perhaps they should hand out a can of mace with that whistle!

Perhaps they should hand out a .22-caliber derringer. More effective.

[MustaphaMond]

Perhaps they should hand out a can of mace with that whistle!

Perhaps they should hand out a .22-caliber derringer. More effective.

Foreigners are not allowed to own firearms of any kind. And in Phuket , no more hand gun permits will be issued to anyone.

No worries though, criminals wishing to have weapons will have to follow this law, too .

[farang prince]

Well Mustapha, it is better to be tried by twelve than carried by six. If carrying a little derringer gives you a better chance of survival, I think my Thai lady will figure out a place to carry it.

Edited April 6, 2008 by farang prince

[TypicalAnonym]

In one of the Bangkok Post's other pieces they described the attacker as some

kind of "wayward sea gypsie" I'm surprised they didn't immediately come out

and insinuate he might be Burmese. You really want to give them the benefit...

Can you please not manually insert carriage returns when you are composing replies? Just use them to separate paragraphs. This will let your text format correctly with the width of the browser window in which it's viewed.

[Sheryl]

If nud_e or semi-nud_e sun-bathing was an actual cause of rape/murder, the beaches of Phuket, Samui et al would be knee-deep in corpses.

If she was wearing even half of a bikini, that's more than has seemingly become the "norm" at Thai beach resorts.

If the Thai authorities think it is dangerous, or if they care about the fact that it is, for sure, offensive to most ordinary Thai people, they should crack down on it. They've chosen not to, which personally I think is a mistake, albeit not because it has any effect on crime. I just hate to see a country selling itself so blatantly that it allows the culturally unacceptable on a whole ale basis because it thinks it helps bring in the tourist $$$.

I'm not too crazy about having the natural beauty of the coastline spoiled by a decidely unattractive parade of nudity and near-nudity, either....it's an eyesore, and an embarassment especially to those of us with Thaii or other Asian family or friends that we'd like to enjoy taking to the beach........

But none of this has ^&($ to do with the violence.

[thaigene2]

Perhaps they should hand out a can of mace with that whistle!

Perhaps they should hand out a .22-caliber derringer. More effective.

Foreigners are not allowed to own firearms of any kind. And in Phuket , no more hand gun permits will be issued to anyone.

No worries though, criminals wishing to have weapons will have to follow this law, too .

Yep, and migrant workers aren't allowed to own/possess mobile phones or gather in 'groups'. What a place.

[MustaphaMond]

This is not yet posted online in Phuket Gazette, from Paper edition, April 12-18. Page 29, Issues and Answers;

From Susan in Chalong...

"In light of the recent attacks on women in Phuket, I'm worried about my personal safety and have heard that women are being offered free whistles.

As a resident, am I entitled to a free whistle? If so where do I get one?"

Answer from Police Major Sathaporn Sanguansuk of Phuket Tourist Police;

"The idea to give whistles to female tourists came from the Tourism and sports Moinister while he was in Phuket after the murder of Swedish tourist at Mai Khao beach lHowever, we have yet to receive any orders about that , so for now there are no free whistles ."

( No Susan, you alen't a toulist so we don't give a lat's ass about you..)

Also in this weeks Phuket Gazette edition, ( but not online) on page 4 in a two page spread is a lengthly and statistically confusing article that clearly states however, citing a study from 2006 conducted by the Ministry of Social development and Human Security, that Phuket is the most dangerous place in Thailand regarding

" Personal Security.." Even worse than the southern provinences with the almost daily murders .

The article is a mundane read on statistical analysis and could have better summed it up by saying " Per capita..out of 76 provinces, Phuket is the most dangerous place in Thailand"

As posted by another in the Phuket forum I believe, Great Britain has on it's Governmental travel advisory website that one is 5 times more likey to be murdered in Thailand that in GB .

Welcome to ThaiDieLand, please deposit your cash in this convenient ailport leceptacle. Thank you, now please tuln around and go home.( Smile)

[MustaphaMond]

Bangkok post has removed the page with the Head Tourist weenie-guy stating women can expect to be attacked if they are in isolated places.

The Nation has removed but not corrected the X press editorial page from Wednesday March 19th that states this crime happened at night .

CNN.com has not issued a correction either though I have written twice about it .It still states at the top of the page, Hanna was " out for late night walk."

It would seem that very few are interested in publicizing the fact she was butchered around noon.

Lesson: DO not trust the two national English language newspapers for factual or complete information.

Coming soon: RadioFreeEast

Edited April 13, 2008 by MustaphaMond