Rights and Wrongs

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

20 February 2012

: THAILAND: Ten activists charged for protesting against undemocratic legislation]
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ISSUES: Human rights defender; Freedom of opinion, expression & assembly
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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is calling for court observers at the resumption of the trial of ten activists, who are being prosecuted under Criminal Code on trespassing and coercion in relation to peaceful protest that was held on 12 December 2007 in Thailand. The trial of them case will be on February 21 - 24 and 28 - 29, 2012 and on March 2012 and on April 2012, at the Criminal Court in Bangkok.

The details about case and schedule of trial and the witnesses on which the defense would be presenting are below from update information by defendants which call international observers and others for hearing the trial:

Update on The "NLA Sit-In" Trial of 10 Thai Human Rights Defenders

The defendants and their lawyers wish to invite international observers, observers from human rights and media rights organisations based in Thailand, and representatives from foreign embassies in Thailand to attend the trial to help ensure that they receive a fair hearing, as they believe that the charges against them and the possible penalties that they face are grossly disproportionate to their non-violent actions of civil disobedience against a legislature appointed by a military junta which was rushing through legislation affecting human rights and civil liberties just 11 days  prior to a general parliamentary election.

The Defendants are:
1. Mr. Jon Ungphakorn, NGO and human rights activist
2. Mr. Sawit Keaw-wan, state enterprise union leader
3. Mr. Sirichai Maingam, state enterprise union leader
4. Mr. Pichit Chaimongkol, NGO and political activist
5. Mr. Anirut Khaosanit, farmers' rights activist
6. Mr. Nasser Yeemha, NGO and political activist
7. Mr. Amnat Palamee, state enterprise union leader
8. Mr. Pairoj Polpetch, NGO and human rights activist
9. Ms. Saree Ongsomwang, NGO and consumer rights activist
10. Ms. Supinya Klangnarong, Freedom of expression and media reform activist

The Charges:
Collaborating to incite the public to violate the law through speech, writing, or other means outside the boundaries of constitutional rights or legitimate freedom of expression (Section 116 of the Criminal Code -- maximum penalty of 7 years imprisonment); gathering in a group of 10 or more people, in the capacity of leaders or commanders, to threaten or to carry out an act of violence or to act in a way which causes a public disturbance (Section 215 of the Criminal Code -- maximum penalty of 5 years imprisonment and/or fine of up to Baht 10,000); trespass with use of violence (Sections 362, 364, and 365 of the Criminal Code -- maximum penalties of 5 years imprisonment and/or fines of up to Baht 10,000 under both Sections 362 and 364 as qualified under Section 365)

Trial Dates: (Tuesdays to Fridays)

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAMME

Urgent Appeal Update: AHRC-UAU-006-2012

13 February 2012

[RE: AHRC-FPR-006-2011: THAILAND: Calling to observe for court trial of Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of Prachatai website, on 4 - 17 February 2011, 9.00am - 4.00pm at the Criminal Court]
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THAILAND: Trial of webmaster charged for computer crime resumes tomorrow

ISSUES: Human rights defender; Freedom of Expression
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Dear friends,

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is calling for court observers at the resumption of the trial of Chiranuch Premchaiporn, director of the Prachai website, who is being prosecuted under the Computer Crime Act after her arrest in March 2009.

The trial of her case, after it was delayed for a variety of reasons, will again resume on February 14 to 16, 2012 at the Criminal Court in Bangkok.

The details about the schedule of trial and the witnesses on which the defense would be presenting are below:

Dates: 14-16 February 2012
Venue: At Court Room 910, the Criminal Court on Ratchadapisek Road, Bangkok
Witnesses for the defense:
1. Professor Sawatree Suksri, lecturer of the Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law at the Thammasat University. She is an expert on Computer Crime Law.
2. Professor Jittat Fakcharoenphol, Ph.D, Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University. He is an expert on IT Technology
3. Doctor Kitibhoom Chutasmith, Director of Bhusing Hospital, Sri Sakhet Province. Prachatai Webboard user
4. Mr. Wanchat Bhadungrat, Founder of Pantip.com
5. Assistant Professor Pirongrong Ramasoota Rananan, Associate Dean, Department of Graduate Studies, Faculty of Communication Arts, Chulalongkorn University. She is a scholar in Mass Media who researched on the Internet Content Regulations

For details about on which day these witnesses will be testifying:
14 February 2012 (whole day session)
Professor Sawatree, Professor Jittat and Doctor Kitibhoom
15 February 2012 (morning session)
Mr. Wanchat Bhadungrat
16 February 2012 (afternoon Session)
Assistant Professor Pirongrong

For those interested, the court's timetable usually runs 9am to 12nn for morning sessions and 1pm to 4pm for afternoon sessions.

Simultaneous interpretation will be also be made available for international observers. You can also contact Ms. Kheetanat Wannaboworn at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call +84-899-0509 for more details on the prior arrangement you may require.

You can also read our previous appeals AHRC-FPR-006-2011, containing the details of the previous court trials; and our press release AHRC-PRL-008-2011, containing views and extracts of the report of Margaret Sekkaggya, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders, regarding Chiranuch's case:

In her appeal calling for court observers, Chiranuch wrote:

"Three years, are the time I have to live my life being accused of committing a crime under Section 14 and 15 of the Computer Crime Act. Still, I have to continue a life like this without knowing an end. For all these time, I would like to thank you for your assistance, support and keen interest on the trial observation always.

The police arrested me at Prachatai Office on 6 March 2009 while the prosecutor filed the case to the Criminal Court on 31 March 2010. On the latter date, I was detained in the court basement for four hours before THB 300,000 bail was guaranteed by my sister’s career (she is a nurse in the government hospital) as an exchange for my contemporary release. The court then arranged a meeting on 31 May 2010 to investigate the witnesses, collect the evidence as well as decide on the hearing dates.

At first, the hearings were scheduled for eight consecutive days in February 2011 but could only continue for four days with five prosecutor witnesses’ presence. The rest of the witnesses said they were not available on the mentioned dates required the judges, prosecutors, and the lawyers’ team to set up a new hearing schedule from September to October 2011. Due to a large time gap; the composition of the judges in the second period were changed with regards to the annual shift occurred in the bureaucratic system.

In September, the hearings of the prosecutors’ witnesses were completed and the hearings of the Defense witnesses had started including that of myself. In October, massive flooding in Bangkok prevented the continual court trial, Mr. Danny O’Brien from Committee to Protect Journalists who was traveling all the way from San Francisco being the only witness allowed.

At the hearing, an interpreter provided by the court was unable to give an accurate interpretation. The lawyers’ team; as a result, was decided to submit the testimony written by Mr. O’Brien beforehand and would like to postponed the rest of the hearings to 14-16 February, 2012."

Thank you.

Urgent Appeals Programme
Asian Human Rights Commission ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Do Farangs Have Any Rights to Self-Defence in Thailand?

Radical says- NONE- The foreigner is always presumed to be in the wrong and to have money to bail himself out of the situation.

Crime is rife and the police record of solving it is next to nil.-

Advice- Keep your money safe and your powder dry .

By Bill Smith

Stickmans guide to Bangkok
 

If I am attacked by a Thai (or by another foreigner, for that matter) do I have the right to defend my self, either with my hands and feet or with sticks, stones or a “real” weapon?

A little intro as to who I am: I am a retired American, and my wife, who is nearly my age, is a retired Chinese business lady. We are people of some means, but we eschew the higher social circles, preferring the company of ordinary people.

I cannot seem to get any Thai person to address the question of self-defence, they simply say “we should not fight”. Well, no kidding, at my age, 57, why would I want to fight?

I had an experience 6 months ago that left me wondering about the whole issue of Foreigner Rights, and further wondering if we are all just “prey for the hunters” here in Bangkok. My wife and I were walking along Sukhumvit, on the odd-numbered side, from Soi 33 towards the Emporium. It was late on a Sunday afternoon, but still daylight. As we walked across the Soi 35 intersection, a motorbike brushed close behind us, and the rider on the back scooped up my wife’s purse, snatching it cleanly away from her. She screamed, and I immediately turned, ran, and pulled the rider off the back of the bike. The driver of the bike then lost control, and his motorbike slid on its side into a concrete lamp post. The purse fell loose from the clutches of the thief, and my wife recovered it.

The thieves, instead of brushing themselves off and running away, first stared at us in amazement, and then began shouting in Thai. Suddenly we were surrounded by angry Thais, most of them either street people or moto-taxi drivers. Within a few moments, a lone Thai Police officer showed up on his motorbike, and broke up the crowd, but the Thais were all still screaming and shouting, and pointing their fingers at me.

I speak no Thai, and none of the Thais would speak to me in English. Eventually, a Thai police officer showed up that spoke reasonably good English. I took him to one side, and I repeated the whole story to him over and over until I was sure that he understood it. He understood, but his final comment to me was “You should not have fight with thief, bad for you to fight.”

Well, after a while, a patrol car and then another showed up. My wife and I were driven to a police station in one car, and the two thieves (free, not in handcuffs) were driven there in another car. We all four gave statements at the station.

And, naturally, it finally all came down to money. The thieves were “injured” and their motorbike was “broken”, and they wanted reimbursement.

The English-speaking police officer seemed to be acting now as a mediator or negotiator acting on behalf of the thieves. I was outraged and I told him so. I made all sorts of threats, and I demanded that he arrest the thieves, to which he said “cannot, no witnesses”.

I took my wife under my arm, and plainly explained to the officer that I had friends at the American Embassy and that I would have him fired if he pursued this nonsense. (Not that I have any such connections, but it sounded good) With that, my wife and I simply got up and walked out of the station, no one followed us, nor did they demand that we continue the upside down inquisition.

Again, I cannot find anyone that seems to definitively know what our rights are. Perhaps, as in all things Thai, it depends on how well my Thai opponent is “connected”, and how much “Tea Money” I am willing to give to the police.

How about weapons? I have only gotten one definitive answer on that, from a Thai Police Chief, who said that unless I was a Registered Money Courier, and listed as such in my work permit, that I have no right to own or carry a concealed firearm. OK, so I won’t be playing either the Dirty Harry or the John Wayne role. How about a knife? May I either openly (or concealed) carry an effective fighting knife, like a Bowie or a Randall?

Was my experience typical of Thailand, and do I have any rights at all to self-defence here in Bangkok?

Stickman's thoughts:

This really is an excellent question and there is no simple answer.

As can be clearly seen from your experience, justice did not take place at all and you were very nearly innocent victims - saved by your quickly thinking.

Carrying weapons in Thailand would not be a good idea at all, even if at times it seems to be warranted. And as much as I hate to say it, if the thieves had attacked you and you had gone on to beat them up, even if only using "reasonable force", you would have been in trouble.

While I don't wish to condone violence, in any altercation with Thais, even if you are in the right, it is advisable to flee the scene quickly. Little good comes of going back to the police station as you found out.

I thought both these luminaries were members of the democratically-elected government of Pheu Thai, and I was under the impression that Thailand was already a democracy, albeit an imperfect one.

Perhaps the red shirts have a different democracy in mind and could enlighten us lesser mortals about the nature of this democracy, or perhaps autocracy?

Home  Society  Thailand  The Rights of Women

The Rights of Women       

Written by Shoba Shukla    
Thursday, 09 February 2012  
 

Girls campaign for HIV awareness in Bangkok

The Gender Agenda: Making HIV Responses Work for Key Affected Women and Girls

The health of women and girls across the world, particularly from HIV transmissions, is threatened by a long list of inequalities simply because they are females.

In a number of settings women and girls, adolescents and other young people, experience substantial impacts of the epidemic, and the specific needs of key affected women and girls remain neglected.

Often stigma, discrimination and criminalization of behaviors prevent women from reporting acts of violence against them and seeking redress.

Sexual exploitation of women, girls and boys, including for commercial reasons can increase the vulnerability to HIV among key affected populations of sex workers.

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, meeting in Bangkok this week on the Millennium Development Goals, is considering 10 targets and elimination commitments in recognition of women’s rights.

 A briefing paper, published by Asia Pacific Coalition of AIDS Service Organizations in collaboration with the Asia Pacific Alliance for Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights and titled “Women and Girls: The 2011 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, Civil Society Perspectives on the 2011 HIV/AIDS High Level Meeting” looks at the 2011 Political Declaration made at the United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting (HLM) on HIV/AIDS held in New York in 2011, and it is important here to reiterate its significant points.

The three most crucial of these goals are to reduce sexual transmission of HIV by 50 per cent by 2015, eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015 and substantially reduce AIDS-related maternal deaths and eliminate gender inequalities and gender-based abuse and violence and increase the capacity of women and girls to protect them from HIV

Reducing sexual transmission of HIV by 50 per cent by 2015 is a time-bound commitment.

Women should be able to exercise their right over matters related to their sexual and reproductive health, without coercion, discrimination and violence.

However, women have reported pressure by healthcare workers to have abortions or undergo sterilizations.

Often coupled with lack of information about health risks, such forced decisions are violations of human rights.

Governments must commit to redouble HIV prevention methods efforts by investing in facilitating female initiated prevention methods and access to sexual and reproductive healthcare services.

The ESCAP report found that only 34 percent of young people possess accurate knowledge of HIV.

The 2011 Declaration strongly recognizes that young people are being excluded from information and services, and offers solutions by ensuring access of both girls and boys to primary and secondary education, including HIV and AIDS, in curricula for adolescents, and ensuring safe environments especially for young girls.

Civil society has stressed the need for equitable access to treatment literature especially for marginalized women who often have less access to education, putting them at greater risk.

 Equal opportunities for education should be guaranteed for women and men.

Eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV by 2015 and substantially reducing AIDS-related maternal deaths is another time-bound commitment.

Prevention of vertical HIV transmission should be part of a holistic HIV prevention, treatment, care and support package for women.

To achieve this, the governments have to ensure access for women of child-bearing age to HIV prevention-related services, access for pregnant women to antenatal care, counseling and other HIV services, and access for women and infants living with HIV to effective treatment.

Laws and policies focused on key populations related to preventing vertical HIV transmission should adhere to principles of informed consent, confidentiality, pre and post-test counseling and proper referral to treatment, care and support services.

A time-bound commitment is made towards having 15 million people living with HIV on antiretroviral treatment by 2015.

However, barriers for marginalized women to access treatment including stigma, discrimination, threat of violence, fear of disclosure, legal/policy barriers, still remain.

Eliminating gender inequalities and gender-based violence is a cross-cutting issue and critical to reach all goals and targets in the 2011 Declaration and the Universal Access agenda.

Many countries in Asia and the Pacific are experiencing concentrated epidemics with key affected populations identified as most at risk.

Evidence also shows that women drug users are more likely than their male counterparts to acquire HIV and face a range of gender specific barriers to accessing HIV-related services.

Migrants, especially female migrants, often experience conditions of high vulnerability, endure abuse, exploitation, violence, stigma and discrimination, and lack access to reproductive health services leading to sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV.

The 2011 Declaration calls for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls, and in particular “harmful traditional and customary practices, abuse, rape and other forms of sexual violence, battering and trafficking in women and girls”.

Asia Pacific governments are called upon to undertake measures to address discrimination and legal barriers to effective HIV responses, in particular with regard to key affected populations.

They need to scale up actions for policies that address the rights of women and girls in the context of HIV, and the link between HIV and different forms of violence against all women and girls.

These must be incorporated in national HIV response strategies and programs.

Women’s groups call for active involvement/ meaningful participation of PLHIV, especially women and girls, in all aspects of HIV policies and program development and decision-making.

Governments must pledge to take all necessary measures for the empowerment of women to increase the capacity of women and adolescent girls to protect them from the risk of HIV infection.

National responses should meet the specific needs of women and girls “through strengthening legal, policy, administrative and other measures for the promotion and protection of women’s full enjoyment of all human rights”.

Furthermore, the role and engagement of men and boys in the achievement of gender equality is crucial.

It is hoped that the deliberations at the event will go a long way in addressing the needs and rights of key affected women and girls for HIV prevention, treatment and care services. (CNS)

(Shobha Shukla is the Managing Editor of Citizen News Service (CNS).

She has worked earlier with the State Planning Institute, UP and taught physics at India's prestigious Loreto Convent. Email: shobha@citizen-news.orgThis"> This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , website: http://www.citizen-news.org)