GENEVA, 22 July 2005 — The head of a leading UN human rights panel yesterday warned that Thailand’s state of emergency in Muslim majority provinces allowed security forces to act with impunity and breached international rules.
“We have a lot of problems with this state of emergency in Thailand,” Catherine Chanet, the chairwoman of the United Nations Human Rights Committee told journalists. “We are very worried about that.”
A Thai government delegation earlier this week appeared before the committee under a regular examination of the country’s application of international rules on civil and political rights.
The Thai delegation had been unable to provide a definite draft of the new law, introduced on July 15, even though it said a person could be detained for 30 days without appearing before a magistrate, Chanet said.
“Something that is worse; in this law they say there is impunity for any policeman or soldier whose behavior is against human rights.” “It’s a provision of the law and we said it was absolutely not in conformity,” she told journalists.
Article four of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights allows a country to suspend some basic rights temporarily under emergency powers.
But Chanet insisted that there were clear limits, and a “red line” had also been crossed by suspending the right to legal recourse.
She also expressed concern that a clampdown on press freedom might be more extensive than warranted.
Chanet cautioned that the UN panel was bound to place Thailand under closer scrutiny because of the emergency law.
“The committee will certainly place them under a harsher follow-up procedure,” she said.
Thai human rights groups that submitted evidence to the UN Committee also slated the emergency powers of detention.
“We question the reason for the extension of the presently permitted period of 48 hours, given the known widespread use of torture in the questioning of suspects,” said Pranom Somwong of the MAP Foundation for ethnic labor, in a joint statement for the groups.
They warned that the clampdown would not help win over hearts and minds in the south.
The decree has been widely condemned by Thailand’s national Human Rights Commission, the political opposition, and the government-appointed National Reconciliation Commission charged with drafting peace proposals in the south.
The UN panel of 18 experts is due to issue its final conclusions on Thailand on July 29.
Arrests Start Under New Law
Thai special forces yesterday raided an Islamic school in Pattani province, arresting at least five suspect militants under new emergency powers that allow authorities to detain suspects without charges for up to a month, sources said.
The five detained suspects were students at the Daepadae Islamic boarding school in Yarang district, Pattani province, 740 kilometers south of Bangkok, local militia sources said.
The arrests were not confirmed by local police or army officials.
Under a new emergency decree, pushed though by the Thai cabinet last week, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinwatra now has full powers to let authorities arrest suspects without charges for up to a month, tap telephones, stop news reports, expel foreigners from the country and ban public gatherings.
The emergency decree officially went into effect yesterday after Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej authorized the lifting of martial law, replacing it with the emergency decree.
Thai Interior Minister Chidchai Vanasatidya traveled to the deep South yesterday to meet security authorities to hash out details on how exactly the emergency decree will be implemented.
Chidchai told the Thai News Agency (TNA) that an instruction had been issued to all officers in the deep South not to give telephone interviews to journalists in order to avoid confusion.
