IS THAILAND'S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD ANYTHING TO CELEBRATE?

On Dec 10 this year, the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) will celebrate the 60th
anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human rights.

On that day in 1948, all member countries convened in Paris to
endorse the fundamental rights of all human beings regardless of
gender, race, colour or religion.

Thailand ratified the declaration right from the start. We are now
party to five major international human-rights instruments: the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child.

Bound by the commitments under these treaties, we have continually
amended laws that violate them.

They are taken into consideration when a new constitution is
drafted.

All organic laws are also amended to comply with these
conventions.

Punishments under the civil and penal codes have also been reviewed
regularly to ensure full compliance.

From the legal perspective, it can be said that Thailand has
seriously promoted and upheld human rights.

The 1997 constitution also created a National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC).

The body has since played a key role in promoting and protecting
human rights, investigating alleged violations, setting up and
endorsing related organisations and networks, and recognising the
promoters of human rights.

To celebrate the diamond anniversary, the local representatives of
the UNHCR, in collaboration with the NHRC and local academics and
human rights advocates, will present a publication on the human
rights situation in Thailand. Since it is intended to celebrate an
auspicious occasion, it is speculated that the book will focus on
progress rather than violations.

I have had a chance to read many of the investigation reports on
human rights cases in Thailand, and I wonder whether any of them will
ever make it to the publication.

Over the years, thousands of victims have sought help from the NHRC,
which investigated into their cases and, as a rule, came up with a
toned-down conclusion.

A blunter verdict would be that in many of these cases, the police
are the major offenders.

This is especially true of Thailand's so-called war on drugs, which
began in 2003. At that time the police were told to fill their
"arrest quotas" or faced transfers. Three months into the
operation, at least 2,000 people were killed at the hands of police,
prompting the UNHCR to send a representative to Thailand on an urgent
mission.

For its part, the NHRC has proposed that the government, police force
and individual police officers should compensate relatives of the
victims, a call that has to date fallen on deaf ears.

In one case, a young couple in Nakhon Ratchasima won the top prize in
the government lottery, worth millions of baht. They bought a new
house that doubled as a small grocery shop in their village, along
with a pickup truck to deliver goods. They would be leading a happy
life running their small business today had police from Khon Buri
district not suspected them of being "unusually rich".

The police sought search warrants, but could not find anything amiss
in the couple's house. But before they could produce any evidence of
how they came upon their money, the couple were shot dead. The cash
they carried to buy goods on that day was seized and 17 amphetamine
pills were found on the seat of their pickup.

The official police investigation failed to name the killers, but
said the couple were suspected of involvement with drugs - a standard
conclusion drawn on all "unsolved" cases in those days.

Although common sense tells us a drug trafficker should not be so
stupid as to leave drugs on the seat of his vehicle, the police
seized all the couple's assets.

After probing into the case, the NHRC proposed that the police pay
compensation to the relatives, but this has been ignored.

In another case in Phetchabun, a former army sergeant's purchase of a
big house with a swimming pool drew the attention of police, who
suspected him of trafficking drugs.

They had no evidence against him apart from the fact he shared the
same family name as one of their drug suspects. The sergeant was
later killed mysteriously on his way home from jogging and the case
was closed. Such cases are unlikely to be included in the 60th
anniversary book to celebrate Thailand's accomplishments in the field
of human rights.