Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Notes on beatings in Thai jails

Searches and Attacks in Bangkwang and other prisons
Attacks on prisoners by outside forces, on 16th and 17th May 2012
Searches were made throughout Bangkwang prison in Nonthabure, on the evenings of 16th and 17th May. Bangkwang prison is located in Nonthaburi, where those serving sentences over 30 years are held, and those condemned to death. Reports told of beatings “without apparent reason” carried out by a special masked unit.

The first attack on prisoners was made by a group of blue uniformed persons wearing caps, identified by the prisoners as ‘police’. In the floor on which our informant was detained there were about 20 prisoners, the floor consisted of 24 such rooms of facing cells. At first they heard sounds of beating, shouts, and screams. The assailants moved from room to room, apparently carrying out beatings on every floor of every building. They carried batons and numbered from fifty to a hundred or more. Prisoners were made to squat on the floor while searches were carried out. Apart from the blue clad ‘police’, there were ‘officials’ wearing white tea shirts, possibly military or corrections department officials, and a special masked squad dressed in black. Attacks on prisoners appeared to be random; they reported that one prisoner, a Thai citizen, had been beaten to death, and another seriously injured, with a cracked skull, when telephones were found in their bed area. Our informant was kicked on the legs as he crouched on the ground. In another building an informant told us that the prisoners were warned in advance by their own warders to hide telephones, which they did by attaching them behind fans. Prisoners remarked that if the search had been made by warders themselves these phones would have easily been discovered. His account of the beatings corresponded to that of a prisoner in a separate building for prisoners condemned to death. Beatings carried out by masked assailants lasted about 90 minutes. A police man stood at the door of each cell while the occupants were being beaten. On one occasion a regular prison guard was heard calling for a doctor to come. On the following morning he observed two prisoners showing extensive wounds on their backs.

In one account the prisoners were addressed the following morning by a recently appointed prison governor, warning them that news of the previous night’s events were not to spread outside the prison. However, warders advised prisoners to tell their relatives during visits and called on them to make complaints. It was clear that regular prison staff were against these beatings by outside forces.

Reports in the Thai press report other “visits” by such a mysterious unit in Nakhon Sri Thammarat prison. Authorities claimed the events were to eliminate mobile telephones and drugs from the prison. They admitted that prisoners were out of control of permanent staff who feared retaliation to themselves and their families by outside contacts of prisoners who had discovered their identities and domiciles. 

From Bom Bak Phiset prison
An account of similar beatings has been received from prisoners in Bam Bak prison in both Thai and English versions. The following is the verbatim English version.

“Our Complaint to Foreign Embassies and to the Correctional Department

On 9th May 2012 Thai correctional officers conducted a raid on Building 9 of Bom Bak prison looking for “illegal belongings”.
This search was completely different from all previous searches carried out by the relevant authorities.
These officers used extreme violence and brutality and threatening behaviour. They repeatedly hit, punched and kicked vulnerable inmates who were all passive. Hundreds of victims required hospital treatment after the cowardly assaults.
These actions are illegal under existing Thai law. This leads to the question of why are high ranking Thai government officials ordering such illegal and horrific orders.
Therefore the foreign prisoners of building 9 urgently request that our embassies are informed of the truth about the illegal incidents so that necessary steps can be taken to ensure their safety.
Thanking you for these considerations
                        Foreign nationalities from building 9
                        Bom Bat Piset”

The statement was signed by 95 foreign prisoners from 17 different countries. Doubtless Thai prisoners were afraid to sign.

Note: All prisons in Thailand are chronically overcrowded and understaffed. It appears impossible for prison authorities to prevent prisoners accessing mobile phones, drugs, and gambling paraphernalia. Recently all gifts of food or other material brought by visitors have been banned so that smuggling by corrupt officials is the only conduit. A mobile phone inside the prison sells for ten times the outside price. Drugs appear to be readily available.
The populations of the prisons mentioned above are:
Bangkwang; 4008  prisoners
Nakorn Sri Thammarat; 3,202 prisoners
Bombot Prison; 3912 prisoners
Department of Statistics 1st April 2012

Update, Thailand Death Penalty Statistics


Death Penalty Statistics of Thailand for 19th June 2012

All cases

Gender
Appeal Court
Supreme Court
Court Procedure Complete
Total
Male
328
274
52
654
Female
55
11
6
72
Total
383
285
58
728


Drug related cases
Gender
Appeal Court
Supreme Court
Court Procedure Complete
Total
Male
156
89
31
276
Female
45
10
6
61
Total
201
99
37
337


Homicide and other cases
Gender
Appeal Court
Supreme Court
Court Procedure Complete
Total
Male
172
185
21
378
Female
10
1
0
11
Total
182
186
21
389

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

If the Innocent are Executed?


At last there is closure to one of the saddest misjudgments in judicial history.
In 1980 the two month old child of Linda Chamberlain was killed in an atrocious manner while the parents of the child were on a camping holiday near Ayer’s Rock in Central Australia. The parents of the child were arrested and charged with the murder. In their defence they claimed that the child had been taken by a dingo, an Australian wild dog. But the prosecution claimed that the awful wounds on the child’s body had been caused by a scissors to simulate the claws and fangs of a dog. In the very emotional climate that followed news of the child’s death, the mother was found guilty and sentenced to thirty years imprisonment with forced labour. Her partner, accused as an accomplice, escaped with a suspended sentence. But Linda Chamberlain continued to protest her innocence, and three years after sentencing the mother was released from prison on the finding of clothes of the infant near the lair of a dingo, which supported Linda’s claim. But popular opinion still considered her a murderess and she suffered continual attacks and insults.
On the 12th June of this year, a court has finally ruled that the death was indeed caused by a dingo. The mother still raises questions of her conviction on the energetic charge that she was the killer, by police who were eager to satisfy public opinion at the time.
At last justice is done. Comments on the story in newspaper columns are mostly asking, why the fuss about an event which happened long ago in a far off place. But one commentator asked:
“A small reminder for supporters of the death penalty: that crime created an emotional climate in which the mother was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years hard labour. And if she had been condemned to death? Could she be brought back to life today to receive justice?”

                            Mother Linda and her child Azaria
If there were no other argument against the death penalty, this story would suffice to put an end to it. We are always met with indignant questions that follow a savage killing; is the murderer to escape retribution for his crime? No, the murderer must not escape punishment. But should not the execution of a person who is possibly innocent outweigh the supposed satisfaction of a revenge matching the savagery of a crime? The outcome reveals human fallibility. What seems certain is never so. And even if the judgement approaches the near certainty of a public event, what is the benefit of matching one atrocity with another, killing a perpetrator to prove that killing is wrong?