Authorities bar AI talk on torture
Torture allegations sparks arrest threat
BANGKOK, Sept 28, (Agencies): Thai authorities blocked an Amnesty International news conference on torture in the kingdom Wednesday, the watchdog said, the latest move to silence rights groups in the army-run country.
Two foreign Amnesty International staff were scheduled to speak at the Bangkok launch of a report detailing 74 cases of alleged torture at the hands of Thai soldiers and police.
But the advocacy group was told Wednesday morning that speaking at the event would be cause for legal action, AI spokesman Omar Waraich told AFP.
“The authorities said to us that ... if any representatives from Amnesty International spoke at the event they would be in violation of Thailand’s labour laws,” he said.
“They did not specify further,” he said, adding that both speakers were in Thailand on business visas.
The government did not respond to requests for comment.
The report accused the junta government of allowing a “culture of torture” to flourish since its 2014 power grab.
It described a range of abuse suffered by detainees, including beatings, suffocation by plastic bags, strangling, waterboarding and electric shocks to the genitals.
The United Nations described the report as “substantive” and hit out at the Thai government for blocking the event.
“This incident is another striking illustration of a new pattern of harassment of human rights defenders documenting torture in Thailand,” said Laurent Meillan, a representative for the UN’s human rights office in Southeast Asia, who was also scheduled to speak at the event.
The junta has severely curbed free speech since coming to power by outlawing
11 passed the rigorous review, Jasareno said. (AP)
MP gets three months for sedition:
A top Malaysian opposition MP was sentenced Wednesday to three months in jail after being found guilty of sedition over statements urging protests against Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government, lawyers said.
Najib has come under fire for using repressive laws against critics and stifling scrutiny of a massive corruption scandal involving state investment fund 1MDB that he is allegedly embroiled in.
Chua Tian Chang, better known as Tian Chua, was found guilty of sedition for inciting Malaysians to take to the streets to rally against corruption in 2013. all political events, intimidating the press and detaining scores of critics of the regime.
Meanwhile, Thai authorities threatened to arrest Amnesty International speakers who were set to hold a news conference Wednesday to release a report detailing allegations of torture at the hands of the military and police, causing the rights group to cancel the event.
Beatings, suffocation by plastic bags and electric shocks of the genitals are among the torture methods used by Thai soldiers and police under the military government, according to the Amnesty report, which was sent to news organizations earlier this week but was to be officially released on Wednesday.
Warned
Just before the news conference was to begin, officials from Thailand’s Ministry of Labor warned Amnesty that the two speakers set to talk about the report did not possess work permits and therefore risked arrest if either one spoke on stage. Amnesty then canceled the event.
“We know that the current government does not accept criticism very well,” one of the slated speakers, Yuval Ginbar, Amnesty’s legal adviser, told reporters outside the room where the news conference was to take place. “But what is happening in the unofficial places of detention — people being beaten up, people being suffocated, people being water boarded — and what happens in police roadblocks where suspected drug users are forced to urinate in public or are coerced into paying bribes to get released, this is more important than what we’re facing here.”
Government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd defended the Ministry of Labor’s actions by saying no matter which organization the speakers are
Chua, who is the vice-president of the opposition People’s Justice Party, said the court decision reflected the “growing intolerance” of Najib’s regime.
“There is growing intolerance against critics. The government aims to stop people from voicing out,” Chua, who is freed on bail, said.
The sessions court also hit the vocal MP with a fine of 1,800 ringgit ($435) in a decision slammed by rights groups.
Chua’s lawyer N. Surendran said an appeal will be filed.
Last year Najib purged his government of critics and shut down domestic investigations while the number of activists facing court action and police probes has shot up.
The 63-year-old premier is clinging to power despite increasingly damaging from, they must comply with the law. If they do not possess work permits, they risk arrest, he said.
“Our laws don’t have multiple standards, we have only one standard,” Sansern said. “We all have to follow these laws. Even if we are criticized, the law is the law.”
In its report, Amnesty International documented 74 cases of torture and other mistreatment by military and police officials since the junta’s takeover of the country in a May 2014 coup.
“Please shoot me and send my corpse to my family,” said a man who was arrested by the army and held at an undisclosed location for seven days, according to the Amnesty report.
The man said he was repeatedly tortured with other methods. “They put a plastic bag on my head until I fainted, and then poured a bucket of cold water on me,” the report quotes him as saying. “They applied electro-shock to my body and chest. I was restrained, my legs tied, and my face covered with tape and a plastic bag.”
Sansern denied any allegations of torture, saying that officials are required to act according to international standards of humanitarian laws.
Since it seized power, the military government has been continuously criticized by human rights groups for cracking down on dissent, jailing critics and censoring the media.
Without mentioning the Amnesty report directly, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha defended military detention of “so-called political prisoners,” saying they are given good housing and food, but that they sometimes complain about things like the quality of air conditioning.
“We’ve released so many of these so-called political prisoners, but some are charged so we have to hold them,” Prayuth said to reporters at a separate forum on Wednesday.
allegations that he took part in the looting of billions in state funds. Najib and 1MDB have repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the scandal. (AFP)
Dotcom’s appeal against extradition:
Lawyers for German entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, wanted in the United States on copyright infringement and money-laundering charges over his file-sharing website Megaupload, argued on Wednesday there was not enough evidence to show he conspired to commit a crime.
The Auckland court heard closing arguments in Dotcom’s four-week appeal against a lower court’s decision to extradite him to the US, the first New Zealand court proceedings to be broadcast live on the internet.
The appeal took place nearly five years after dozens of black-clad police rappelled into the flamboyant entrepreneur’s New Zealand mansion and cut him from a safe room.
US authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material.
The four deny wrongdoing and are on bail.
The case has been closely watched by the media industry and developers in the file-sharing business for signs of how far the United States is willing to go to protect copyright holders.
“Dotcom is one of these poster boys for these file sharing sites,” said Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, an administrative law academic at Otago University.
“A successful extradition to the US could make this a really important case down the track for determining the legality or otherwise of sites like Mega.”
Years of legal wrangling followed Dotcom’s arrest in the police raid in 2012 and it emerged that the Government Communications Security Bureau had illegally spied on him before the raid. (RTRS)