Responding to today\u2019s court ruling in support of a request from victims and their families to file a criminal lawsuit against officials allegedly responsible for the deadly dispersal of a protest in Tak Bai in 2004, Amnesty International\u2019s Thailand Researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cToday\u2019s court decision is an important first step in delivering long overdue justice for the victims of the Thai security forces\u2019 excessive use of force to disperse the Tak Bai protest. The victims and their loved ones have spent almost two decades waiting for justice and accountability for the heinous crimes committed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThai authorities must immediately enforce the court decision and take necessary measures to ensure the case\u2019s statute of limitations does not expire. Authorities must ensure access to justice and effective remedies for victims and their families. The truth about human rights violations committed during the Tak Bai incident must be officially acknowledged.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Background<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Narathiwat Provincial Court today ruled in favour of a request from the victims and their families to file a criminal lawsuit against nine officials suspected to be responsible for human rights violations during the Tak Bai protest, including former high-ranking military and police officers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After today\u2019s court decision, at least one of the defendants must appear before court to acknowledge the lawsuit for the case to begin, according to Article 95 of the Thai Criminal Code which governs the statute of limitation for criminal offences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 25 October 2004, more than 2,000 protesters gathered in front of Tak Bai police station in Narathiwat province, one of Thailand\u2019s southern border provinces, to demand the release of six Malay Muslim men who were believed to be arbitrarily detained by Thai authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Security forces used tear gas, water cannon and live ammunition, killing seven protesters instantly \u2013 five of whom were shot. After the crackdown, about 1,370 detained Malay Muslim men were transported to Ingkayut Borihan Military Camp in Pattani, 150 kilometres away. Forced to lie on top of one another in army trucks, 78 died from crushing or asphyxiation during transit. Many survivors suffered severe injuries and permanent disabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statute of limitations for the case is set to expire on 25 October 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An independent fact-finding committee, established by the then-government, condemned the use of excessive force and poor judgment in the transportation of detainees. Despite compensation for victims, no officers identified by the committee have been brought to justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In October 2023, Amnesty International published a public statement<\/a> on the impacts of Thai authorities\u2019 failure to deliver justice for the victims of the violent crackdown on the Tak Bai protest and their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u0e40\u0e23\u0e35\u0e22\u0e19\u0e23\u0e39\u0e49\u0e40\u0e1e\u0e34\u0e48\u0e21\u0e40\u0e15\u0e34\u0e21\u0e40\u0e01\u0e35\u0e48\u0e22\u0e27\u0e01\u0e31\u0e1a\u0e41\u0e2d\u0e21\u0e40\u0e19\u0e2a\u0e15\u0e35\u0e49<\/a> Responding to today\u2019s court ruling in support of a request from victims and their families to file a criminal lawsuit against officials allegedly responsible for the deadly dispersal of a protest in Tak Bai in 2004, Amnesty International\u2019s Thailand Researcher Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong said: \u201cToday\u2019s court decision is an important first step in delivering long overdue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1585],"location":[],"resourceType":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-5434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"datePosted":"November 25, 2024","mlpRelationships":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=5434"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=5434"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=5434"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=5434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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