Thailand deserves a praise for taking recommendations, 181 points, especially the one on the measures for the protection of human rights defenders and the assurance that rights of human rights defender will be appropriately respected, from good friends of Thailand under the UPR process.

          Today, there are many human rights defenders and community rights defenders who were threaten, including female human rights defenders. Many of them were killed, enforced disappearance, threaten and sexual harassment in recent years. Moreover, some of them, i.e. human rights defenders who are against the gold mining, human rights defenders for land and resources and human rights defenders in southern border provinces, were sued with several charges from private and public agencies. Recently, the Internal Security Operations Command, Region 4 (Front Command) brought a charge against 3 human rights defenders: Mr. Somchai Hom-la-or, Ms. Pornpen Khongkachonkiet and Ms. Anchana Heemmina, who jointly made a report on the issue of torture in southern border provinces

          “As the Chairperson of the Sub-Commission on Civil Rights, I have been seriously concerned about the measure of the public sector for reporting a case and charging  human rights defenders instead of the measure for cooperation on the human rights protection in Thailand” “Bringing a charge will not be useful to the positive change but it will create fear in the society and affected people will be afraid to complain about the violation of rights, especially in southern border provinces where there were many complaints about tortures during detention. Therefore, all parties should find the solution to jointly examine for transparency and fairness.”

          “I demand the government, especially the Ministry of Justice, to perform by following the recommendations given by the United Nations in order to find the measure of protection for human rights defenders and I would like to stress that filing a lawsuit against human rights defenders will not be useful to public. I am confident that cooperation from all sectors will genuinely lead to the establishment of the protection standard, torture suppression and violation of human rights in Thailand.”

 Mrs. Angkhana Neelapaijit
NHRCT Commissioner
Chairperson of the Sub-Commission on Civil Rights
16th June 2016
 

16/06/2016