The Asian Human Rights Commission has vehemently opposed and campaigned for the lifting of the emergency decree over the southernmost provinces of Thailand since it was introduced in mid-2005. Now in an alarming sign of the dramatically worsening conditions in that country, today the AHRC finds itself calling for the lifting of the decree from the streets of Bangkok.
As has been widely reported, the government of Samak Sundaravej declared a state of emergency this morning, 2 September 2008, under Prime Minister’s Order No. 195/2551 (2008) in response to overnight violence in the city, the continued occupying of government premises by protestors and growing strike actions in some sectors. It is reported that melees between opposing groups left at least one person dead and numerous others injured, but at this stage it is unclear which parties were responsible for provoking the incidents. The deceased person and two others were shot. Disturbing unconfirmed reports have it that police officers stood to one side while the violence occurred and took photographs but did not intervene.
The committee for handling the emergency consists of the army chief, the regional army commander and the police chief, and according to the prime minister this committee will decide when it can be lifted. The emergency was declared under the same law as that over the southern provinces. Under this law, it can be kept in place for three months before requiring renewal, which is a formality: the decree over the southern provinces has been repeatedly renewed for over three years. Indeed, although the law was introduced by the former prime minister only over the southern provinces it was from the start envisaged as something that could be brought into effect anywhere in the country any time. Now inevitably it has.
Although the government of Thailand is in a very difficult situation, contrary to the assertion of the prime minister, it is not true that to introduce the state of emergency was the only way. Rather, it was for him and for the state security forces the easy way, as it now gives police and army officers a licence to detain, torture, and kill with impunity, as they have done in the south in these last few years, and for which the decree has been condemned by the United Nations special expert on extrajudicial killings. It is a law that is clearly intended to permit anything, both by virtue of its intent and its ambiguity. That this is the case is manifest from the massive incidence of human rights abuse in the south that has been documented by literally dozens of groups in the last few years, the AHRC among them.
Bangkok is not Narathiwat, but it has over the decades seen plenty of violence, at times sporadic and at times concentrated, and the current prime minister is among those who know of this violence well, although he has actively denied this. It is conceivable that under the umbrella of this emergency situation there could be a renewed spate of disappearances and killings not only of persons who have been involved in the disturbances of recent weeks but of anyone whom security forces have been waiting for a good opportunity to deal with. It is precisely these sorts of times that provide police, soldiers and connected persons many such good opportunities to deal both with the grievances of the state as well as their personal grievances.
The Asian Human Rights Commission iterates its strong opposition to the use of the emergency decree anywhere in Thailand, not only in Bangkok, and calls for its immediate lifting. This is not a decree that will afford any security to anyone. It is a decree to generate greater insecurity and danger both for the people immediately affected by it and indeed by everyone in Thailand. As has been demonstrated in the south, it is not a solution to bloodshed but a creator of more. It must be lifted at once and a sane and restrained alternative found to the country’s political impasse.
