Further updated: Suicide attempts

Readers will be well award that a series of political prisoners, denied bail, have been on hunger strikes. Some of those continue.

Shockingly, yesterday it was revealed on social media that one political prisoner had attempted suicide. It is now revealed that three Talugas protesters, also denied bail and “being held on remand, have tried to commit suicide, but were rescued and are now safe…”. That’s according to Corrections Department Director-General Aryut Sinthoppan.

He stated “that one of the protesters, detained at the Bangkok Remand Prison, swallowed over 50 paracetamol pills, which he had gathered from friends in the prison, while the other two slashed their wrists with a sharpened tool of unknown origin.”

The three protesters reportedly “told prison officials that they were stressed, missed their families and wanted bail.”

He also “insisted that, while the prison has CCTV to monitor the activities of all prisoners at all time, he will order an investigation into how the trio managed to attempt suicide without detection by prison guards.”

At present there are some “11 members of the Talugas protest group are being detained at Bangkok Remand Prison, pending trials on multiple charges” all related to protests.

Bail is necessary. But so too is the prison designated for political detainees. In 2014 there was an effort to separate political prisoners from the general prison population.

Update 1: A Thai Enquirer op-ed comments:

If nothing else can convince the authorities to grant bail to young pro-democracy protesters (who should not be jailed in the first place) languishing in prison while awaiting trial than the latest news that one of them tried to commit suicide while in prison should force them to change their minds.

Given that this is Thailand and the Prayut Chan-ocha administration, it should come no surprise that no bail is forth coming and once again the pro-democracy political prisoners are being punished to the extremes to frighten them into silence.

Update 2: Prachatai reports that it was one prisoner who attempted suicide. The other two engaged in protest using “the lid from a can of fish to cut themselves on the face and arms over 10 times from the wrist to elbow to protest their detention and denial of bail.” Another is on a hunger strike. All the detained protesters “are stressed and anxious.”