Avoiding rights

Sunai Phasuk at Human Rights Watch has a telling account of Srettha Thavisin’s Puea Thai coalition government skipping out on human rights.

Sunai says that “Thailand’s prime minister, foreign minister, and other senior government officials did not meet with the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, when he visited Bangkok on June 5 and 6…, unlike with other regional destinations, such as Malaysia, where he met government leaders and publicly commented about the human rights situation.”

Türk’s visit to Thailand became a mere stopover.

But avoiding Türk and the UN “won’t make Thailand’s human rights problems disappear,” and it seems a very odd move when Thailand is a candidate for the UN Human Rights Council.

Sunai adds that avoiding the Commissioner will not “address the many concerns UN member countries have about rights abuses in Thailand,  including during Thailand’s most recent … Universal Periodic Review (UPR)” by the very Council it seeks to join.

Thailand’s government is thus viewed as spineless on human rights. Worse, it is seen as a human rights abuser.

Since July 2020, Thailand’s royalist courts “have prosecuted at least 1,954 people, including 286 children, for exercising their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful public assembly.” The recent death in custody of Netiporn Sanesangkhom “has drawn global attention to the Thai government’s strict enforcement of … [the lese majeste] law, with”[m]ore than 270 people hav[ing] been prosecuted on lèse-majesté charges related to either the democracy protests or social media comments. Some have also been charged with vague computer-related crimes and sedition laws. Even former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra faces lèse-majesté charges for media comments he gave in 2015.”