Strange news has been coming from Thailand, where five police have filed defamation complaints against a reputed forensic pathologist and senior government bureaucrat after they suggested that a man with five bullets in his vital organs probably didn’t shoot himself. The death of Sunthorn Wongdao on May 21 has captured public imagination since the police first claimed that he shot himself four times in the lung and once in the head after being surrounded by their officers. The five police decided to employ Thailand’s antiquated defamation laws against Dr Porntip Rojanasunan, deputy director of the Central Institute of Forensic Science, and Manit Suthaporn, deputy permanent secretary of the Ministry of Justice, after the two implied on television that the victim may have been extrajudicially killed. A call-up poll run by the broadcaster found that some 92 per cent of respondents agreed with their view.
The defamation complaints are sheer nonsense and must be brought to a stop. If police are permitted to refute or ignore the opinions of forensic professionals, the criminal law becomes a joke. If they are permitted to threaten scientists with punishment for doing their jobs, it becomes a monstrosity. Such actions might have been possible hundreds of years ago, when Galileo and his peers challenged the unprecedented position of the church, but they have no place in a modern justice system. The government of Thailand must immediately insist that the five officers withdraw the charges. The officers must also be taken to task for their audacity, and their superiors held to account for tacitly approving of the action. If the government fails to discourage such absurd abuses of power and strike out the outmoded laws that sustain them then the country will be made a global laughing-stock.
Thailand today is a sophisticated country with a population that can boast of high education and culture. Its people should be affronted that the police are able to act like the country’s justice system is one big joke, turn homicides into suicides and charge persons who imply otherwise. In recent times there have been considerable attempts to refine and improve the country’s laws, and in particular to bring them into conformity with international standards. Although still in their early stages, these are great initiatives that are bound to bear fruit, unless they are damaged by relentless attacks from persons and institutions that resent such social change. Among those, the Thai police are the biggest threat.
It is time for all persons in Thailand concerned with the country’s reputation to come out openly against the shameless excesses of power enjoyed by the Thai police. The Asian Human Rights Commission calls on the legal community in Thailand to take up a special role. The integrity of the legal profession depends upon the protection afforded to forensic scientists offering sound opinions based upon their training and experience. The legal community owes unconditional support to the two persons accused of defamation in this case, and must unequivocally condemn the police action against them.
The international community, and particularly those parts of it concerned the upholding of scientific principles, also has a duty to intervene and break the obstacles to the development of scientific practices as a part of criminal investigations in Thailand. International human rights groups and United Nations agencies should pay special attention to this matter in discussions with the Thai government.
The filing of defamation charges in this case has been described as ‘the right of the police to protect their reputations’. It is no such thing. It is a blatant attempt at intimidation of key scientific professionals and government officials using a tried-and-tested bullying tactic. It has done nothing to uphold anyone’s reputation. On the contrary, it has only further damaged the already totally degraded reputation of the Thai police. It has again demonstrated the inclination of Thai police towards primitivism and barbarity rather than science and reason. It has dragged the name of the Thai police force, and with it the name of their country, further down. It must not be allowed.
