Human rights: Thailand must transcend rhetoric

Human rights: Thailand must transcend rhetoric – malaysiakini.com, March 7, 2011
…The issue of state impunity, especially the war on drugs, which reportedly lead to the extra-judicial killings of at least 2,500 people under the administration of Thaksin Shinnawatra, has been commonly referred to by the ruling Democrat-led government in the debate on how Thaksin’s administration had a worse human rights record than they. However, after almost two and a half years in office, the Democrat-led government has failed to bring a single high-ranking military or police officials involved in atrocities under Thaksin to trial.
The government promised that the case of disappeared human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaitjit would be given priority. The seventh anniversary of his disappearance will be commemorated next week and his family continues to wait, empty-handed.
It’s not very likely that culprits behind the assassination of 20 activists and 85 victims of the Tak Bai massacre will be held accountable for their crimes anytime soon. Nor would there be an investigation into the January 2009 incident where Burmese Rohingya refugees were mercilessly towed to sea to an uncertain fate without supplies…