Angkhana urges PM to make progress on Somchai case

Sunday, 21 March 2010

Angkhana urges PM to make progress on Somchai case

Fri, 25/12/2009 - 06:44

Angkhana Neelaphaijit sent an open letter to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, urging him to work on the case of her husband’s disappearance, where no progress has been seen during his one year in office. She also called attention to the disappearance of an important witness and the safety of the witness’s family.

In the letter, dated 23 Dec, which was also addressed to the Minister of Justice and the Director-General of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), Angkhana referred to Abhisit’s pledge to the public upon receiving the premiership a year ago that he would set up a special working group for important cases which had allegedly been ignored by previous governments.

One of those was the case of lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit, who was disappeared in 2004.

The case, which was adopted by the DSI in July 2005, has made no progress, while major witnesses and their families have been under serious threat, Angkhana said.

Angkhana demanded that the PM, as the superior authority of the DSI, accelerate investigation of the case. During their four years in charge of the case, the DSI has only attempted to search for evidence in the Mae Klong River in Ratchaburi Province, where it found four 200-litre oil drums which were believed to be involved with the destruction of Somchai’s body, and pieces of human bones whose DNA was, however, found not to match that of Somchai.

She raised concerns for a more efficient witness protection programme as witnesses and their families had been threatened and could not live normal lives. The disappearance of her husband involved high-level police officers accused of torturing suspects in the theft of military weapons on 4 Jan 2004, which has been under investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC).

One of the witnesses, Abdullah Abucari, who had been under the DSI’s witness protection programme, returned to his home in one of the southern border provinces on the occasion of an important religious date in late November, and disappeared on 11 Dec.

Angkhana asked the DSI to take responsibility for his disappearance, and urgently investigate the case.

She also asked the government to criminalize enforced and involuntary disappearances, and to sign and ratify the UN Convention Against Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

The disappearance of Somchai has severely shaken confidence in Thailand’s justice system and rule of law, especially in the eyes of people in the southern border provinces. Although the government has been successful in providing redress and development, it has failed to deliver justice and equality in law, she said.

Source:

http://www.prachatai.com/journal/2009/12/27124

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Comments

by John Francis Lee (not verified) (127.0.0.1 118.172.66.146) ... Fri, 25/12/2009 - 17:47.

Angkhana referred to

Angkhana referred to Abhisit’s pledge to the public upon receiving the premiership a year ago that he would set up a special working group for important cases which had allegedly been ignored by previous governments.

Abhisit has made a string of empty pledges and false assertions about the state of affairs in Thailand. Like Barack Obama, he triggers a "willing suspension of disbelief" in a populace that is terrified of both the left and the right and wants someone to tuck them in, tell them its all right, and ignore along with themelves the roaring flames and beams crashing down around them in the mansion in which they are sharing tea and crumpets.

The DSI's job is, as always, to make sure that no investigation into the truth takes place.

by John Francis Lee (not verified) (127.0.0.1 118.172.66.15) ... Sat, 26/12/2009 - 13:59.

Abhisit summons ICT minister

Abhisit summons ICT minister to urgent meeting

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva Saturday summoned Information and Communication Technology Minister Ranongrak Suwanchawee to an urgent meeting at the Government House.

Abhisit arrived at the Government House at 9:40 am and summoned the ICT minister and the deputy PM's secretary-general to the meeting.

A censorship "emergency"? Perhaps Jatuporn has put the smoking gun up on the internet somewhere? I hope he put it up in enough places simultaneously to ellude the ever-vigilant Ranongrak and afford us all a view as Ragnaroek unfolds.

by John Francis Lee (not verified) (127.0.0.1 118.172.66.15) ... Sat, 26/12/2009 - 23:17.

Why is Beijing Afraid of Liu

Why is Beijing Afraid of Liu Xiaobo?

You cannot find a more low-key, modest, and moderate dissident than Liu Xiaobo, who was jailed on Christmas day – when presumably the western world was on holiday and not reading the newspapers – for 11 years.

It is true that Liu and a score or so professors and legal experts drafted the Charter '08 Internet petition, which called on the authorities to allow citizens to enjoy civil rights already enshrined in the Chinese Constitution.

Although no "state secrets" were involved in the Liu case, his wife, supporters as well as foreign diplomats were not allowed to attend the two-hour trial which was held on December 23.

There are several reasons why the CCP is so afraid of a gentle and restrained dissident whose demands have never gone beyond incremental, gradualist political reform. First, the leadership under President Hu Jintao was shocked by the potency of the Internet as a galvanizer of the voices of dissent. Within two months of the appearance of Charter '08, more than 10,000 Chinese citizens signed on to the Net-based petition. The signatories included not only intellectuals but workers, retirees and housewives. The past two years have seen hundreds of blogs, chatrooms and Chinese-style Facebook and Twitter sites breaking news that have embarrassed the authorities.

That's why State Councillor Meng Jianzhu, the nation's top cop, warned recently that the Internet had become a "major means through which anti-China forces perpetrate their infiltration and sabotage activities."

Yet the most important reason why CCP honchos are so afraid of – and angry with – Liu is that his criticisms of the regime seem dead on target.

Liu has also faulted the CCP for trying to use the force of nationalism to extend its tattered mandate of heaven.

"The official patriotism that the CCP dictatorial regime has advocated," wrote Liu, is tantamount to "asking the people to love a dictatorial regime and a dictatorial party."

As Mao Zedong said, it only took "a spark from heaven to set the whole plain on fire." The gargantuan, mind-numbing injustice behind the CCP's pogrom against Liu seems to have outraged even a people long cowed into silence and subservience. And Beijing may find that killing the chicken to scare the monkey just may not work this time.

by John Francis Lee (not verified) (127.0.0.1 118.172.66.15) ... Sat, 26/12/2009 - 23:36.

Is the Kingdom of Thailand

Is the Kingdom of Thailand emulating the People's Republic of China, or the other way round. The treatment of Liu Xiaobo mirrors the treatment of Darunee and other dissidents in Thailand.

Another common characteristic of the repressive regimes in both countries is their partnerships with the Google empire. Google performs censorship services for both countries, and may well turn in the data used to persecute them, data that the Googleplex maintains on everyone it possibly can, dissidents included.

It is ironic how those who claim to be against censorship, data-mining, and the malicious co-operation of corporations and government to the detriment of the individual so often succumb to the panache of a gmail account, as do both FACThai and PPT, for instance.

You might drop them a line asking them to switch mail providers, explain why you can no longer correspond with them until they do, and switch yourself if you use the Googleplex' data-mining operation as a mail service..

For in doing so those who use gmail offer up not only the details their own correspondence to Google which has pledged to read, digest, and to keep it all forever, but the details of their correspondents' as well, whose only other choice is to choose not to correspond with Googleplex' enablers.

Let's all make a New Years' resolution to "just say no" to gmail and to Google's worldwide censorship services and data-mining operations. Who knows if the Googleplex had a hand in Liu Xiaobo's demise? They certainly do censor web content in both Thailand and China.

Let's hope the spark from heaven does set aflame the plain of individual action against the Corporate censors and data-miners whose business model is to turn their customers and what should remain their customers' private data into their product.

by Darren Nelson (not verified) (127.0.0.1 89.243.209.165) ... Sun, 27/12/2009 - 02:14.

Thanks JFL,I for one will not

Thanks JFL,I for one will not use Google,as a matter of Principle.

by michael (not verified) (127.0.0.1 58.11.27.96) ... Sun, 27/12/2009 - 22:49.

It's well-known that Google

It's well-known that Google has been actively participating in censorship in various countries for some years. There are ways of circumventing this, of course, as FACTHAI has taken pains to inform Thai internet users (China apparently has programs circulating also).

They even do it in the U.S. (http://www.innercitypress.com/un1google021408.html & http://www.agoravox.com/news/media/article/new-google-censorship-accusation-7740 Both of these are from early 2008.)

So far, I have only been aware of site-blocking, and the American (U.N.- 'whistle-blower' news) case, which is similar (although rather more collusive & sinister, given the context & the circumstances), in that it is making a valuable alternative news source less accessible.

However, it's an entirely different thing to infer that they "may well turn in the data used to persecute (dissidents), data that the Googleplex maintains on everyone it possibly can, dissidents included." -JFL.

I have seen nothing remotely suggestive of this. Have you? If so, please give specific, traceable, details. I feel it's absolutely important to be accurate with stuff like this. (Speculation with no back-up is not helpful at all. It can lead to urban myths, which are accepted by the lunatic fringe & the uninformed. This can be very damaging.)

by John Francis Lee (not verified) (127.0.0.1 118.172.66.15) ... Mon, 28/12/2009 - 06:41.

Well, I have no specific,

Well, I have no specific, traceable details on Google's having specifically turned over user date to any "authority". Yahoo has been known to do exactly that. And Google's willingness to cave-in to the relevant "authority" in order to make a buck must make you wonder just how far down the slippery slope they've slid at this particular point in time. It is only prudent to assume that the laws of gravity will prevail as always and that once begun the trip to the bottom is inevitable.

In the US, for instance, the PATRIOT Act makes it illegal for an organization ordered to comply with betrayal ordered under its authority to make such "compliance" know to the individual betrayed or to anyone else. The major phone companies routinely, and siletnly, betrayed their customers for years. And now their man in the White House has foreclosed the possibility of their being held responsible for their betrayals.

Google, tragically, is a Jekyll and Hyde character. Simultaneously they have assembled the world's best computer scientists, they've hired nearly all the hands from the Bell Labs CSRE, and embraced the open source movement; yet they are a publicly owned company, and so care not a whit for the well-being of the world's human population but only for their own stock price.

It is foolhardy to think that the pledge of the founders... "to do no evil"... undertaken when the firm was still under human control, will now be honored in any way other than as a public relations gambit.

Google recently officially joined the US occupation of Iraq when chairman Eric Schmidt flew there to inaugurate the behemoth's "virtual" occupation of that crushed and occupied nation's museum of antiquities.

Google has replaced Microsoft's business model, the-customer-as-victim, with its own, the-customer-as-product, and that has become so "successful" that it is being emulated throughout the IT sector and now everywhere else in the twilight days of the American Empire.

by John Francis Lee (not verified) (127.0.0.1 118.172.65.82) ... Sun, 10/01/2010 - 10:06.

It's not just Google, of

It's not just Google, of course...

Clinton dines with top tech executives

What an interesting dinner last night in the most exclusive section of the State Department, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited some of Silicon Valley's top innovators into her private space for a candid, off-the-record evening of food and conversation...

The tech leaders at the dinner included Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, Cisco EVP Susan Bostrom, Andrew Reseij, the founder of Personal Democracy Forum, Microsoft's Craig Mundie, Tiffany Shlain, creator of The Webby Awards, How-to guru Jason Liebman, serial entrepreneur James Eberhard, and Social Gaming Network CEO Shervin Pishevar.

On the State side of the table, in addition to Clinton, were her deputies James Steinberg and Jack Lew, Policy Planning chief Anne-Marie Slaughter, policy staffer Jared Cohen (the guy who kept Twitter alive after the disputed Iranian election), Clinton's senior advisor for innovation Alec Ross, and Katie Stanton, who just came over from the White House.

The State Department is gearing up for a huge push on innovation technologies as tools of development and diplomacy, which will be announced in a major policy speech by Clinton on Jan. 21.

It's all the individuals and corporations that the Evil Empire, or its corporate directors, can threaten or cajole into playing their games.

Think twice before you give any of these quasi-governmental organizations any more information than is absolutely necessary.

And don't turn over your communications with your innocent friends, wily nily!