It’s not listed in any of the human rights documents that the UN comes out with but let’s credit Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha with the Right to Ignorance.

So they arrest this Kritsuda woman on 27 May under martial law.  After 7 days she fails to re-emerge, no one knows where she is, and then on 17 June her name appears on one of the NCPO’s ‘see me in my office tomorrow morning or else’ lists.  This was a bit perplexing since as far as anyone knew, she was still in the custody of the military.  How can you report to them when they’re holding you incommunicado? 

A hue and cry starts until 23 June when we get the ‘everybody as happy as can be’ video, all smiles and best of friends, and the next day she’s released. 

So she had been kept in a military camp after all, but it was difficult to count the days of detention from 27 March to 24 June and come up with 7, which is the max that martial law allows.  To avoid any possibility of anyone thinking that any member of the military could in any way to do anything against any law, we get the explanation that it wasn’t really detention.  It was a meditation retreat, quite voluntary; she wanted to be kept inside, with her new best mates in uniform, without being pestered by her increasingly anxious family and friends. 

So that’s all right then and it’s such a heart-warming story that it’s been given a second run in the Yongyuth case.

But then Kritsuda spoils the happily ever after ending by leaving the country and declaring it was all a sham; she was tortured and intimidated and she’s seeking asylum in fear of her life.

Responding to these allegations, the junta, who had so kindly overseen her meditation sessions, acted as any rights-respecting government would.  They called her a liar, censored reports of what she said and suddenly filed charges against her of gun-running so that she can be extradited (it seems to have finally got through to them that lèse majesté is a non-starter when it comes to extradition).

So they had her under lock and key, be it voluntary or not, for 4 weeks, then let her go, and now they suddenly discover serious criminal charges against her?  Dearie me.  That’s not the kind of investigative skill that inspires confidence. 

And as for the allegations of mistreatment, Gen Prayuth has the clinching answer.  The NCPO, he is reported as saying, ‘has never violated human rights’. 

This logic is regularly used by those in authority.  ‘The proof that we didn’t do X is that we never do X.’  Somehow I can’t imagine that kind of defence would stand up in a court of law in front of any prosecutor worth his paycheque.

In Kritsuda’s case, the allegations and counter-allegations about torture are worthy of a surrogacy saga and let’s charitably say nothing has been proved one way or the other.  But does the military never use torture? 

Well, the corpse of Imam Yapa Kaseng is fairly convincing evidence that they do.  He was beaten to death in 2008 in a military camp, according to a court’s findings, and military personnel were punished for the crime (for as much as 60 days – wow, that’s a real deterrent). 

The National Human Rights Commission regularly receives complaints of torture, 14 last year, for example.  Three-quarters come from the south and more than two-thirds of these involve the military. 

Still, since the coup there have been allegations of torture but as yet no definitive proof.  NCPO spokesman Col Werachon Sukondhapatipak points out that detainees get “air conditioning”, “good food” and “all kinds of activities that make the time pass quickly”.  And that’s not torture.  True.

They also get blindfolds, hoods, no contact with the outside world and threats to themselves and their families if they don’t sign a standard form on release that says the military never done nuffink nasty, yeronner.  Which is far more suspicious.

But Col Werachon isn’t worried about torture.  He lists the country club conditions to prove it’s not detention, a word he doesn’t like.  (Finicky lot, this junta; they don’t like the word ‘coup’ either.)  Because detention is a violation of human rights unless it’s done under certain conditions.

First there must be good cause.  But we’ve seen a broad sweep of anybody whose attitude the junta thinks needs adjusting.  Or, if they run and hide, their relatives.  Then detainees must be informed of the charges against them, which seems to be never the case.  And they must be held in a designated place of detention, not somewhere military that nobody, least of all the hooded and blindfolded detainees, can identify.  And they must be given prompt and regular access to lawyers, family and friends and any necessary medical treatment.

Because incommunicado detention, as organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International never tire of pointing out, creates the ideal environment for the torture that we are told didn’t happen, never happens, couldn’t possibly happen.

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).