The Asian Human Rights Commission is writing to you to express its persistent concern over the alleged attempted abduction on 28 June 2006 of Vasant Panich, a member of your National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) of Thailand and the head of the Subcommittee on Legislation and Administration of Justice.
The facts of the case, as you are aware, are that on June 27 and 28, Mr. Vasant received a series of strange calls to both of his mobile phones, his house phone and his wife’s phone. After he sent his driver ahead on the morning of June 28, the car was followed. Mr. Vasant and his wife then took a number of taxis to reach the NHRC office after they became concerned by the behaviour of at least one of the drivers, and the second taxi appeared to be followed by a silver minivan. When they reached the NHRC office, the same minivan was parked nearby.
As Mr. Vasant has worked on the case of abducted human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit in detail he was sensitive to the use of phone calls and vehicles to track a target. He has good reason to believe that the operation may have been a planned attempt to abduct and kill him also.
This attempted abduction exposes the continued grave conditions for committed human rights defenders in Thailand. It also raises serious concerns about protection for persons in official positions who are tasked with upholding human rights, especially the members and staff of the NHRC. Whereas your commissioners and staff are expected to work in an official capacity towards the enjoyment of human rights by all people in Thailand, overwhelmingly powerful state agencies–including the police, military and some parts of the bureaucracy–are resolutely opposed to the enjoyment of these rights.
So who among them would have sought to abduct Mr. Vasant, and why? The AHRC has little doubt that the operation was performed by state agents in response to his work in the south, particularly on the hundreds of unidentified bodies that are awaiting exhumation. This type of operation requires planning and access to resources–including telecommunications and other infrastructure–which goes beyond any one individual or private group.
Planned abductions by state agencies also cannot happen without tacit or explicit clearance from someone in the command structure. This clearance will only be given with the assurance that the perpetrators have political protection. The abduction and disappearance of Somchai Neelaphaijit, which the AHRC has studied in great detail, is a clear example of a conspiracy in which persons high up in the government of Thailand have ensured that justice be thwarted and the truth concealed.
Abductions of senior people are aimed at creating widespread fear among other human rights defenders and the public in general. They imply that anyone can be targetted, and that further schemes to commit gross human rights abuses are being planned and carried out. Therefore, it is imperative that other senior human rights defenders, and especially the National Human Rights Commission itself, take a strong position to protect the targetted person, in their own interests. The fact that Mr. Vasant escaped one presumed attempt on his life does not make him safe. He and others working like him can only be made safe if the scheme and participants are exposed and undone.
To do this requires concerted action from all concerned persons and agencies, and above all else, from you as the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission. Those who threaten human rights commissioners are in fact threatening your entire agency and yourself as its head. Even more than this, they are threatening the very notion of democracy in Thailand.
This alleged attempt to abduct a member of the NHRC of Thailand is extremely serious. You cannot afford to take it lightly. It goes to the heart of your work, your mandate and the survival of human rights in Thailand. To ignore it or downplay it would be extremely foolhardy, and would place everything for which your agency stands in peril.
The AHRC therefore trusts and anticipates that you will raise the matter in the strongest possible terms with the concerned authorities, and demand that there be a full and immediate investigation of this incident and clear expressions of support for the work of the NHRC and all of its members by the government of Thailand. We also urge you to take the matter into the public and raise your voice loudly and unequivocally in defence of your commissioners, for the sake not only of them and yourself but also all human rights defenders in Thailand.
We look forward to your action accordingly.
Yours sincerely
Basil Fernando
Executive Director
Asian Human Rights Commission, Hong Kong
