No human rights in a regime of thugs

The criminal court has rejected Sirawit Serithiwat’s petition for the release of anti-junta activist 25 years-old Thanet Anantawong who was snatched by the military from a hospital bed on 13 December 2015. He has not been seen since then and needs medical attention and needs to be produced in court within the next 24 hours.

The health condition of Thanet and his exact location are unknown.

No one expects any justice or even humanity from Thailand’s courts in such cases, so it is no surprise that the court “reasoned” that because the military junta has Order No. 3/2015, this permits “security officers to detain suspects of crimes related to national security for seven days without any responsibility…”.

Khaosod reports that:

Doctors at a hospital where a patient was removed and taken into military custody said they have received no information about his medical condition from authorities.

Three days after sedition and lese majeste suspect Thanet Anantawong was removed from a hospital by plainclothes security officers to answer a charge of sedition, the hospital director said Wednesday they have received no information about his medical condition from the military.

“They haven’t informed us, [they] only interrogated us, including his physician, but not [myself] yet,” said Supaporn Karalak, 58, director of Sirindhorn Hospital….

The hospital denies that it alerted the military of Thanet’s hospital admission. Social media accounts suggest that the hospital or a royalist employee acted to report Thanet, a red shirt, leading to his arrest.

Despite citing “patient privacy” when talking to the media, it talked to the military: “ … we gave [the information] to the military because they had a letter demanding it…”.

This case, and many others, show that Thailand is essentially lawless, under a regime that came to power illegally. The corrupt military dictatorship can do anything it wants, when it wants and how it wants.

The report at Prachatai states that:

International human rights agencies, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International have recently issued statements urging relevant state agencies to provide medical treatments and make his detention location known.

“Thailand’s junta has reached a new level of ruthlessness by snatching an activist from his hospital bed, putting him in military detention, and depriving him of needed medical treatment,” said Brad Adams, the Asian director of HRW. “Thanet Anantawong needs to be immediately transferred to a hospital.”

That is putting it altogether too mildly. This is a rogue regime uninterested in any notion of human rights or human dignity. General Prayuth Chan-ocha and his thuggish regime is seemingly intent on making Thailand some kind of monarchy-military totalitarian state. The extremism of the regime is indicated by Thanet’s arrest, which is prompted by the junta’s determination to prevent investigation of its own corruption.