(Hong Kong, February 22, 2008) The wife of abducted human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit and three victims of police torture on Friday told investigators that they have “no confidence” to pursue cases against the police without continued protection.
The four have been informed that from the end of this month the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) will no longer offer them security.
“We know of many other witnesses in the three southern border provinces who were threatened and some of them were killed,” the three torture victims wrote in a letter submitted to the head of the DSI, underlining their fears for their safety.
Angkhana Neelaphaijit, the chairperson of the Working Group on Justice for Peace, submitted the letter together with one from herself in a meeting with Sunai Manomai-udom, DSI director general.
From February 29 police will be assigned to these cases instead of DSI staff, which are under the justice ministry. The victims have indicated that they will not accept the police.
Basil Fernando, executive director of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), expressed his shared concerns for the victims’ safety.
“It is sheer nonsense to expect that people who have been tortured or seen relatives abducted or killed by the police would be willing to have police come and stay in or around their houses,” Fernando said.
“The networks of officers involved in committing and covering up these crimes are very large, and there is simply no way that police can be expected to protect people from other police,” he said.
The Hong Kong-based regional rights group had earlier credited Thailand with being one of the few countries in Asia to set up a nascent programme for witness protection, but had expressed concern from the start that it would be in danger of being taken over by the police.
“What we are witnessing now is a full reversal of the small but good steps taken by the government of Thailand in passing a law on witness protection in 2003 and setting up an office under the justice ministry,” Fernando said.
“It is a part of the bigger project underway since the 2006 coup to throw Thailand back to a 1980s style of autocratic government in which there is very little space for notions of human rights and few spaces for civil society,” he said.
“For this reason, as well as for the sake of the lives of these witnesses, the AHRC is following what is happening very closely,” Fernando said.
“We strongly urge the concerned authorities to reconsider this regressive move. If not, if anything were to happen to any of these persons after February 29, it will be squarely on the heads of the minister and DSI director,” he stressed.
The AHRC on Wednesday submitted an open letter to the justice minister calling for a review of the decision to end DSI protection for persons in special cases where police are the alleged perpetrators:
http://www.ahrchk.net/statements/mainfile.php/2008statements/1377/
In 2005 its sister organisation, the Asian Legal Resource Centre, released a special report on witness protection in Thailand, which is available for download online: http://www.article2.org/pdf/v05n03.pdf
The report is also available in Thai: http://thailand.ahrchk.net/docs/witness_protection_thai.pdf
