Sombat Boonngamanong gets a day in court

The Bangkok Post reports that president of the Mirror Foundation and red-shirt activist Sombat Boonngamanong, now detained under the draconian emergency provisions that govern much of Thailand, will have a court date. The Criminal Court has agreed to hear his appeal against his detention on Friday. His lawyer will make application on Thursday for his client to come before the court.

Currently Sombat is being held at the Border Patrol Police 1st Region Command in Pathum Thani. He’s been held since 26 June, when he was arrested when conducting a peaceful remembrance ceremony for killed and murdered red shirt demonstrators. That ceremony included photos of the government’s violent dispersal of the red shirts; the government is keen to suppress any red shirt account of the event.

Even if he has his day in court, Sombat may not be permitted to appear in person and may have to speak via videoconference. Given that Sombat is not a major risk to the court or its officials, this seems a bizarre situation.

In the same story, neatly juxtaposed, the Post reports that “Asian Human Rights Commission representative Nick Cheesman has told a Hong Kong newspaper that the recent one-year appointment of Thai ambassador to Geneva Sihasak Phuangketkeow to head the United Nations Human Rights Council was a victory for diplomacy over the rights that the council was supposed to uphold.”

Cheesman observed that while Thailand was pushing Sihasak, the Abhisit Vejjajiva government was busy undermining “the rights of its citizens, with around a third of the country under a state of emergency.”

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