Govt must do more to help 'innocent' detainees

[Coss]

The Truth and National Reconciliation Commission headed by retired attorney-general Khanit na Nakhon recommended on Tuesday that the government help bail out some of the detained red-shirt protesters who did not commit serious offences during the April-May protests or were not the real agitators.

 

The Khanit Commission reasoned that bail is a basic right of an accused criminal offender, is internationally recognised and also guaranteed by the Thai constitution.

 

Temporary release would allow these people to participate in the search for a peacful solution to the country’s political conflict, the commission said.

 

The Khanit Commission’s recommendation came five days after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva met with two freshly released red-shirt protesters at the parliament. The two, one of them 32-year old Sommai Inthanaka, were bailed out with the help of the Justice Ministry, using a special fund set up by the ministry, after they had spent six months behind bars.

 

Sommai was [color:red]arrested[/color] at Lumpini Park on May 5 and was [color:red]sentenced[/color] to one year’s [color:red]imprisonment[/color] for violating the emergency decree. {sounds fair to me}

 

The meeting between the prime minister and the two freshly released red-shirts at the parliament was widely seen by critics as a photo opportunity, arranged to give Mr Abhisit a human face for showing his concern for the plight of the detainees, because of the hush-hush manner by which the meeting was arranged.

 

Nevertheless, if the prime minister can deliver what he has promised – that is to help bail out some 40 other red-shirt detainees who did not commit any serious offences during the protests – then the move represents a healthy start in the long and winding road towards national reconciliation.

 

Nirand Pitakwatchara, a member of the National Human Rights Commission and a former senator, said at a recent seminar that he had visited red-shirt detainees in their various prisons and found out that several of them were not real trouble-makers and did not take part in violence, such as the torching of provincial halls.

 

They were arrested merely for breaking the conditions of the emergency decree.

 

He also pointed out that enforcement of the emergency decree had caused many problems, Many red-shirt protesters merely joined the protest and were not involved in the violence at all, but some of them were caught and jailed for simply defying the emergency decree.

 

The government’s help for these “innocent†red-shirt detainees may have come a bit too late, but it is nevertheless better than never. However from now on, help in bailing out the detainees must speed up. This means more money must be provided for the bail fund at the Justice Ministry.

 

Also, similar help must be extended to the 500 or so “innocent†detainees in the far South held on security-related charges and unable to meet bail simply because they are too poor.

 

Since October, only 14 of them have been released on bail, again thanks to the help of the Justice Ministry.

 

But this help is just a drop in the ocean. The government needs to do more, and do it more quickly, if it really wants to win the hearts and minds of the families of the detainees, if not most of the Muslim people in the strife-torn region.

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