Release political prisoners II

Coconuts Bangkok reports on political prisoner Tantawan Tuatulanon:

Human rights campaigners and pro-democracy activists are calling for Thai authorities to release a young activist who has been on a hunger strike for over a month.

The authorities have been holding a number of young monarchy reform campaigners, and in recent days calls have grown for them to drop the case against a 20-year-old activist who has been on a hunger strike for over a month and reportedly requires medical attention.

Tantawan “Tawan” Tuatulanon has not eaten anything except milk or water since April 20 to protest her ongoing pre-trial detention and should be immediately transferred to a hospital, legal reform group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said yesterday. It said her life was in danger as her hunger strike continues, adding that the activist could barely move and faints several times a day. She also suffers from bleeding gums and weight loss.

The Manushya Foundation said: “This is unacceptable injustice and another example of the government waging war against pro-democracy students. Tawan must be released!”

Sunai Phasuk, Senior Thailand researcher at Human Rights Watch stated: “The lengthened pre-trial detention of Tawan and other activists is brutal and shows Thailand’s disregard of human rights and fair trial standards…”. He added that Tantawan’s hunger strike is “a display of Tawan’s bravery and commitment to civil disobedience to resist abusive authoritarian powers…”.

Sunai thinks the regime “believes that those who support the reform movement will eventually dissipate from public attention if they are held in prison.” We at PPT think that this is only part of the story. The regime wants to silence them, punish them, torture them.

Pornpen Khongkanchankiet, the director of Cross Cultural Foundation,observed that “detention without a guilty verdict and hefty bail fees amount to a violation of human rights.”

She ads that “Tawan’s activism is one step forward for the movement in unveiling the government’s problematic response to those who disagree with the status quo.” Her hunger strike by Tawan and others amounts to “sacrificing themselves to conduct an autopsy on our judicial system…. And it’s showing something ugly, something primitive, uncivilized. So now they are sacrificing themselves to show the international community, and the elder generation, this broken system.”