The long-delayed report of the National Human Rights Commission into the violence in April and May 2010 has finally been released. Ho-hum.
While some commentators believe that the release was timed to distract public opinion from other matters like the Amnesty Bill, this seems a feeble argument. First, because of leaked drafts, its content was very much as expected.
Secondly, it was published right after the verdict in a court inquest into the deaths of 6 people at Wat Pathumwanaram, which had been declared a ‘safe zone’, on the afternoon of 19 May 2010. The court ruled that the military were responsible for shooting dead people inside the temple in the absence of any provocation by way of opposing fire, but the NHRC appears to have swallowed the self-serving explanations of the military and government which are effectively disproved by the available evidence.
Overall, the NHRC report, while rapping the government side’s knuckles for ‘inappropriate actions’ like dropping teargas from a helicopter into the middle of a crowd, finds the security forces not guilty of human rights abuses – not even the limited list of violations in the Truth for Reconciliation Commission report.
The protestors, on the other hand, or ‘terrorists’ as the NHRC would have it, were guilty of violating the rights of all those who wanted to do some upmarket shopping or otherwise go about their normal lives, but were prevented from doing so by the encampment at Ratchaprasong. This ‘unlawful’ protest provoked the authorities into an entirely appropriate violent response. So it was not the shooters who were violating human rights, but the shootees.
It seems clear that in the non-dialogue of uncompromising narratives that are pretty much all you can hear in Thai politics today, the NHRC has firmly and predictably plonked itself down on one side of the divide and bugger any dispassionate examination of human rights abuses.
But we’d better get used to it. Rumour has it that the NHRC has a number of human rights reports in the pipeline. Many have been the subject of heated disputes within the Commission, we hear, but don’t bet any folding money on the ‘liberal’ minority version seeing the light of day.
For example, the NHRC promised long ago to study Article 112 of the Criminal Code, commonly known as the lèse majesté law, and specifically the question whether the law itself and the way it has been used in Thailand constituted a violation of the right to freedom of expression.
The draft report being prepared for publication notes the sensitivity of the issue and the numerous appeals from lèse majesté prisoners to the NHRC to intervene in their cases, if only in support of their applications for bail, which are routinely denied by the courts.
The report goes on to say that the monarchy holds a sacrosanct yet vulnerable position under the Thai constitution and that it would be unthinkable for the monarch to institute defamation proceedings against anyone making malicious and knowingly untrue comments about them. Such comments, and any comments that were inappropriately critical, destructive of the public image of the monarchy, or even just likely to upset a staunch monarchist with a weak stomach, cannot therefore go unpunished.
Furthermore, many persons responsible for such statements are clearly motivated by a malign desire to violate the right of the monarchy to enjoy the unquestioning loyalty of its subjects. It is therefore the persons convicted, accused or suspected of lèse majesté who are the human rights violators in these cases.
In another forthcoming report, the NHRC takes up the case of 10 civil society activists who were found guilty by the courts of illegally entering parliament in 2008 to prevent the un-elected national assembly from passing laws that undermined human rights. The defendants were given fines of 9000 baht and suspended sentences of 1-2 years.
Since at the time of the incident a new constitution had been approved by referendum and parliamentary elections were scheduled in a matter of weeks, the defendants argued that the military-appointed assembly had no legitimacy to pass laws like the Internal Security Act that seriously curtailed rights and freedoms.
In its review of the case, the NHRC report states that the dignity of parliament, whether elected or not, must be respected. In this case, the crime was perpetrated before the laws had been passed, so assembly had in fact done no wrong. In truth it was the activists who violated the right of lawmakers to pass repressive laws that infringe the rights of others.
And in a case closer to home, a third report has been drafted over the conviction last year of this newspaper’s director under the Computer Crimes Act for things she did not write, but for which she was held responsible.
While noting inappropriately vague wordings in the law, the NHRC report concludes that just like a newspaper editor or book publisher, those in charge of websites cannot evade responsibility for what others might say.
The NHRC questions the trial judge’s decision to allow no discussion of whether the posts were in fact offences under the law, but points out that Prachatai is notorious for saying things that governments don’t like and so can only blame themselves if the authorities decide to prosecute. The report gives numerous examples of offensive comments on Prachatai, highlighting what it calls the ‘seriously seditious’ Alien Thoughts column.
About author: Bangkokians with long memories may remember his irreverent column in The Nation in the 1980's. During his period of enforced silence since then, he was variously reported as participating in a 999-day meditation retreat in a hill-top monastery in Mae Hong Son (he gave up after 998 days), as the Special Rapporteur for Satire of the UN High Commission for Human Rights, and as understudy for the male lead in the long-running ‘Pussies -not the Musical' at the Neasden International Palladium (formerly Park Lane Empire).
And if you believe any of those stories, you might believe his columns.
