The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) congratulates you on your appointment as Minister of Justice of Thailand.
You will be aware that in recent days a number of cases have surfaced that have again brought considerable negative attention to the work of the police force and paramilitary groups in Thailand.
Among them is the widely-reported case of the Border Patrol Police gang that allegedly abducted and tortured at least 80 persons, whom they set up on a range of drug-related criminal offences and robbed. The sorts of torture that the gang is described as having used include suffocating and assaulting victims and even electrocuting a pregnant woman. More and more persons are coming forward to claim that they were set up by the gang and it is evident that abduction and torture were central to the mode of operations of this unit.
In the last few days, another case involving Border Patrol Police has been reported in Songkhla Province. According to the open letter of a school administrator there, two of his teachers were taken on February 5 and although one was released later that day, the other was kept until February 7 and brutally tortured. The victim alleges that he was taken to the Task Force 43 camp in Nathawi District where he was beaten all over, strangulated, suffocated with plastic bags, boxed on both temples so that his eardrums burst, stomped on his throat and told that if he didn’t confess to some crimes then he had a choice between being killed on the spot or being killed while being made to look as if he was escaping. From the description, the injuries caused to the victim’s ears may result in permanent damage.
The AHRC is following both of these cases closely, as it has done numerous other allegations of torture by police, paramilitary and military personnel in Thailand during recent years. From these, and the reports of other organisations and researchers, it has concluded that torture is systemic and widespread in criminal investigations throughout Thailand.
Although both of the abovementioned cases are now under inquiry, an obstacle to the effective prosecution of the accused officers in each, as in other cases that the AHRC has studied, is the absence of a specific law against torture. Although Thailand has now ratified the UN Convention against Torture, and although the 2007 Constitution of Thailand prohibits torture under article 32, the absence of a discrete, enabling law in accordance with the definition of torture under the convention is a serious impediment to justice.
In this respect, I wish to draw your attention to General Comment No. 2 of the UN Committee against Torture, which monitors compliance with the treaty to which Thailand is a State Party. This comment has the purpose of explaining how the convention must also be implemented, in accordance with its article 2. In it, the committee makes clear in paragraph 8 that:
“States Parties must make the offence of torture punishable as an offence under [their] criminal law, in accordance, at a minimum, with the elements of torture as defined in article 1 of the Convention, and the requirements of article 4.”
It continues in paragraph 10:
“The Committee recognizes that most States Parties identify or define certain conduct as ill-treatment in their criminal codes. In comparison to torture, ill-treatment differs in the severity of pain and suffering and may not require proof of impermissible sources. The Committee emphasizes that it would be a violation of the Convention to prosecute conduct solely as ill-treatment where the elements of torture are also present.”
In this, the committee stresses and lays plain that without a specific law to prohibit torture in accordance with the convention, a State Party has not even done the minimum to give effect to the terms of the treaty.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has for a number of years called for the introduction of an unequivocal law to prohibit torture in Thailand in accordance with international standards, and in particular, the UN Convention against Torture, which the Government of Thailand has promised to uphold and against which its performance will be assessed in the coming years.
We sincerely believe that it will be of great benefit to the people of Thailand and of credit to its government for a law criminalising torture to be introduced at the nearest possible opportunity. We thus join with other human rights defenders in Thailand and abroad in expressing the hope that your administration will seize this moment and see that this urgently needed law is introduced without undue delay, so that the means may at last exist to address properly the horrendous practice of torture in Thailand.
Yours sincerely
Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong
Cc:
1. Samak Sundaravej, Prime Minister, Thailand
2. Noppadon Pattama, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Thailand
3. Chalerm Yoobumrung, Minister of Interior, Thailand
4. Chaikasem Nitisiri, Attorney General, Thailand
5. Professor Saneh Chamarik, Chairperson, National Human Rights Commission, Thailand
6. Vasant Panich, Chairperson, Subcommittee on Legislation and Administration of Justice, National Human Rights Commission, Thailand
7. Dej-Udom Krairit, President, Lawyers Council of Thailand
8. Professor Manfred Nowak, UN Special Rapporteur on torture
9. Homayoun Alizadeh, Regional Representative for Asia-Pacific of OHCHR
