Activist presses govt over forced disappearances

Human rights defender Angkhana Neelapaijit has called on the government to make serious efforts to address the issue of forced disappearances.

Speaking yesterday at a seminar held by the Oct 14 Foundation, Ms Angkhana, a former human rights commissioner and wife of missing lawyer Somchai Neelapaijit, said the 2004 disappearance of her husband was the first such case that went to court.

However, the Supreme Court in December 2015 upheld an Appeal Court ruling that acquitted five police officers in connection with her husband’s disappearance, she said.

She said that forced disappearances are acts of violence committed by the state in several countries.

In Thailand, forced disappearances have occurred along with human rights violations, intimidation and extra-judicial killings, Ms Angkhana said, adding that some people in positions of power believe that the disappearance of someone will end a problem.

The first ever recorded forced disappearance in Thailand was that of Tiang Sirikhan, a former Sakon Nakhon MP, in 1952, she said.

This case reflected the abuse of state power to get rid of political dissenters, she said, adding that state policies at the time were to blame for such disappearances, such as the policy to suppress communists.

She cited the case of the late leftist intellectual Jit Phumisak who was gunned down in a forest in 1966 at the height of Thailand’s anti-communism campaign, barely a year after he joined the now-defunct Communist Party of Thailand.

Another case is that of labour leader Thanong Pho-Arn who went missing in 1991 while the military regime led by the National Peace Keeping Council was in power, Ms Angkhana said.

She also pointed to activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit, 37, who disappeared in Phnom Penh on June 4. This case has drawn more public attention to the issue of forced disappearances, Ms Angkhana said. The state tried to justify their disappearances by saying they were bad people, she said.