Fighting Pedophilia In Thailand
Thai police fights to turn the tide of child sex tourists
He seemed a little confused and unsure of his surroundings. Karl Kraus sat alone in a cell, his blue, watery eyes following me as I entered the holding area of a Chiang Mai courthouse. Karl Kraus is 90 years old, hard of hearing, frail and, according to the police, a dangerous pedophile.
I'd wandered into the cells sure I would be rebuffed. Instead, the Second World War veteran seemed keen to talk to me. He explained how the allegations against him are motivated by greedy neighbors. He claimed they are trying to blackmail him. It's an argument he will make to judges in the coming weeks. Karl Kraus is thought to be the oldest person ever accused of child molestation in Thailand's over-burdened penal system.
Last year, 2,888 people were charged with having sex with children under 15 in Thailand. Thailand has become the destination of choice for sex tourists looking to prey on children. But now the police are raising their game, determined to turn the tide.
Police Lt. Col. Apichart Hattasin leads a small but very determined unit of officers in Chiang Mai, all dedicated to tracking down pedophiles.
The workload is going up each month; officers here aren't sure whether that is because they are simply uncovering more cases, or whether more and more pedophiles are choosing to relocate to Thailand.
But Col. Apichart is on a mission to catch them and that's not easy. He opened his files to CNN, showing us dozens of surveillance videos, photos and cases histories of suspected pedophiles. While he and his men may be convinced someone may be sexually molesting children, proving it in court is another matter. Often a case pivots on the testimonies of the young victims and that means defendants are often tempted to buy off families.
"Money can change a lot, it can change even the mind of the victims." he said.
"The suspect might try to approach the victim or the family of the victims, to convince them or give bribery to make them change their statement. And if they change their statement, it could be different or totally different I would say. That is the most challenge."
And Col.Apichart is clear the law needs reform.
"There is no specific law about having child pornography in possession," he said. "Thailand should issue the new law about child pornography specifically."
Ronnasit Proeksayajiva is with a small NGO called the Counter Human Trafficking Unit. He works closely with Col. Apichart, often accompanying officers on raids. His assessment is frank -- and bleak.
"Honestly right now I don't think it is getting better, I think it is getting worse, because I don't know, maybe they believe that Thailand is the best place for them to come to have sex with the children."
Karl Kraus is alleged to have lured girls into his modest rundown bungalow in Doi Saket near Chiang Mai. Just a few houses away, I met the mother of the four girls Karl Kraus is accused of abusing. She denied his claim that she is trying to extort money from him. Instead she breaks down and weeps as she goes into harrowing detail about the ordeal her daughters endured. The youngest girl Kraus is accused of abusing is just seven years old.
Kraus' case has received media attention because of his age, but there are many thousands of other cases in Thailand, which largely go unreported. Like Swiss banker Cornel Wietlisbach, who pleaded guilty to abusing young boys in Chiang Mai -- he was facing a four year sentence, but this was halved because he cooperated with the police. In the end, he was granted parole immediately and was deported back to Switzerland after he'd paid a 4,000 baht fine (about $125).
Such cases do little to discourage pedophiles from coming to Thailand. Col. Apichart says online forums are abuzz with talk about Thailand being a child molesters' paradise.
"There is a group of the pedophiles online, it is a community, they talk with each other and they like to come to a third world country where the criminal justice system is not strong enough to deal with them."
Another case working its way through the penal system is that of Robert Cutler, a U.S. Fulbright Scholar teaching biology at a Chiang Mai University. The police accuse him of sexually abusing young boys, something Cutler denies. Col. Apichart had him under surveillance for weeks. The photos show Cutler talking to groups of young boys on the street and taking other boys swimming at a local pool. A video of a police search of his apartment revealed semi-clothed youths in his bedroom. All this will form part of the case against him, which is due to start later this month.
Col. Apichart has this message to pedophiles thinking of coming to Thailand: "I would welcome them to come here, I'm looking for them and if they think they can escape let's try. I will get them one way or another. I will make sure they get punished."
Comments
One can read a lot about child abuse in Thailand, but where can we report a person (male in his 40's) that contacts a 12 year old girl via internet and mobile, waits for her in secret corners, is 'there for her' when she is in need? How many such girls are on his list, when will he strike and where? Is there a black list, where concerned parents can report without filing a case where maybe no case is and never might be one?
Dear Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
If you read page 19 of the child sex abuse report it repeats the issue of police negligence.
Page 19 confirms the police were protecting child sex offenders.
The majority of child sex offenders in Thailand are local people.
http://mulinet10.li.mahidol.ac.th/e-thesis/4337240.pdf
However The Royal Thai Police and their mafia associates have been using these child sex child to frame foreigners as pedophiles as far back as 1986.
Regards
Erik Young
A story of the local Thai police plus their volunteer mafia front man "police" secondary child sex income in the holiday resort of Pattaya Thailand by a brave selfless former Britsh national newspaper reporter http://www.andrew-drummond.com/tag/maurice-praill/
It appears that The Royal Thai Police have signed off this report and not realised they have exposed the depth of their corrupt involvement in the child sex trade in doing so. I have noticed those who compiled the report have omitted some factors which I assume are purely because those omissions equate to the percentage of finacial return and control The Royal Thai Police have criminally organised for thier profit and control of the child sex trade. You should be able to work out the 33% factor just like I can see seems to be their part of the child sex industry
If you inspect the report carefully it seems to expose the police and their crime concerning massive child sexual abuses.
http://mulinet10.li.mahidol.ac.th/e-thesis/4337240.pdf
I have not bothered to read all this 116 page child sex sale report but I defy it being absolute and honest if it has relied upon information provided and signed off by members of The Royal Thai Police.
What this report does do is indicate that there has been a serious child sex abuse situation for many years in central Bangkok.
One can view the report from one direction and note that 33% of the child prostitution trade seems to be unaccounted for. I suspect this is because those compiling the report were tooled with statistics that had removed the Royal Thai Police element to this digusting trade. In other words The Royal Thai Police have been skimming a 33% share of cashflow off this satanic sex trade selling children for sex for many years.
It is 80% definite that the report will be wholly inaccurate due to false and fabricated and manipulated police reporting.
We know they took about US$500 million in ten years from one massage parlour operator with 6000 girls employed. He got fed up with their lies and tricks went public then campaigned to become a politican.
It appears The Royal Thai Police have been taking in excess of US$225 million per year as their share of the child sex trade industry for at least ten years. This excludes the issue of blackmail the police may have used upon child sex offenders to exthort even more money.
How Bangrak, Lumpini, Yannawa and Thungmahamek Police have insulted
The King of Thailand...
Insulting angry attacks upon His Majesty The King of Thailand are
the result of corruption with The Royal Thai Police who disgrace
their monarch and country.
This is some of the disturbing insulting and disgusting media
distributed across the Internet due to the corruption of The Royal
Thai Police.
http://207.7.131.231/video/f8b18u7/king-bhumibol-his-mafia-in-thailand-s...
This video depicting His Majesty King Bhumipol Mahidol of Thailand
as a child-porn king is 100% caused by The Royal Thai Police and
their revolting methods of making money illegally conveniently
failing to deal with this problem for many years..
The perverted peeping-tom Royal Thai Police ......
Back in 2008, Reuters reported that 27% of teenagers surveyed by
Bangkok’s Assumption University said they might sneak off to do the
wild thing on Valentine’s Day. . The Royal Thai Police have been
known to tip-toe around 'maan ruut' (curtain motels) interrupting
amorous couples with pesky flashlights.
Now it is world news, the horror of 15,000 undeclared killings in
Iraq.
Isn't it time we told the world the truth about Thailand ?
I clearly remember 16,000 killed before the end of the 2003 shoot
to kill campaign of Mr Thaksin Shinawatra. I will never forget, he
killed quite a few of my friends so I live with them in my memory
every day of my life.
The Royal Thai Police have covered up the true number of people
they murdered @ over 16,000 not the figure of under 3000 they
declared to be true through The National Human Rights Commission of
Thailand.
Perhaps it is a problem that The National Human Rights Commission
has been staffed in part by former members of The Royal Thai
Police some of whom are acquainted with Mr Thaksin Shinawatra, a
former Thai police man now officially deemed to be a terrorist.
I am certain The Royal Thai Police have been on the pay roll of
some international terrorist associates who hide out in Thailand.
There are a series of events and evidence that supports this
belief.
Bangrak, Yannawa and Thungmahamek police are incapable of being
honest, they are corrupt compulsive liars and human rights
abusers.
Regards
Erik Young
Mr Shinawatra's Legacy.............
ROYAL THAI POLICE PROFIT OUT OF CHILD SEX PORNOGRAPHY
Transparency International rates The Royal Thai Police at level 4
... where level 1 = not at all corrupt ..and... level 5 = extremely
corrupt .
One could read this to indicate The Royal Thai Police as 80%
corrupt.
Thaksin Shinawatra was a Police Lieutenant Colonel in The Royal
Thai Police.
Child pornography has been on sale for many years down Silom Road
and Sukhumvit Road and elsewhere in Bangkok and Pattaya.
The vendors are members of the Thai Mafia. The Royal Thai Police
have been taking backhander payments off these vendors of child
pornography for many years. Tourists out for the evening being
presented with the offer of child porn VCR/DVDs is not good for
Thailand.
Again a serious crime that poses serious abuses of children is
being used as a secondary income stream by The Royal Thai Police.
Police stations that actively participate in taking money off the
vendors of child pornography include Yannawa, Thungmahamek and
Bangrak Police stations in Bangkok.
http://bangkokpost.com/news/local/199391/child-porn-on-streets-
stirs-outrage
In 2006 in Bangkok I found some younger members of the Thai mafia
distributing a film clip through the mobile phone network of a girl
being sexually molested by five young men. I only watched a few
seconds of this one minute long film clip it absolutely freaked me
out. Whilst four young men held her arms and ankles and another
sexually tampered with her, she was struggling like a wild animal
fighting for its life. These young members of the mafia do not go
to prison they are protected by their corrupt associates in The
Royal Thai Police. I saw this film in the district of Charoen Krung
Road not far from the Bangrak Police Station.
You cannot rely upon a police force that makes money out of child
pornography they need to be dis-banded and prosecuted and replaced
with a modern structured police force.
In 2007 I returned from a trip to Koh Samui to find a child
pornography DVD placed inside a bedroom draw unit of one of my
Bangkok homes. I believe it was planted by members of The Royal
Thai Police and their mafia associates. The DVD was not inside the
DVD case so I had to play all the unmarked DVDs in my home to try
and find the offending DVD but failed to find it. This may have
been done by Yannawa police and their agents.
In four incidents I encountered with The Royal Thai Police they had
falsified confession statements and submitted a series of lies and
witnesses statements obtained under duress to the Criminal Courts
of Thailand.
Royal Thai Police Sex Scandal
http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/09/23/scandalous-royal-thai-
police-sexual-abuse-accusations/
Please write (in Thai or any other language) and complain about
Thai police corruption to Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
of NATO via this link
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-3B4BFD35-E159A3B6/natolive/contact.htm
There are several reports of The Royal Thai Police stealing
grenades (M67) from the Thai military and selling them for around
1200 Baht each.
During the Red shirt protests earlier this year it became evident
that members of The Royal Thai Police had supplied M67 grenades to
protestors. Perhaps the deaths of many people may have been avoided
if The Royal Thai Police had been cleared out of the area. The
Royal Thai Police were accepting bribes to allow truck loads of
used tyres through that were then set on fire causing even more
strain upon the military.
It is reported that 1/3 of all prisoners in Thailand are innocent.
I spent five months talking with prisoners in Klong Prem Prison
Bangkok. They plead guilty even if they are innocent as a form of
risk management, most of the prisoners told me 'everyone pleads
guilty', to avoid the risk of receiving maximum sentences in the
event that their not-guilty plea and pleadings in Court fail to
convince Judges of their innocence.
There are over 80,000 people imprisoned in Thailand who are
innocent or have been framed by The Royal Thai Police.
In the past The Royal Thai Police attacked and shot up the home of
PM Kukrit Pramoj, son of a Thai Prince, following a statement he
made in public. Thailand's Ministers cannot solve the problem of
epidemic levels of corruption that fuel political instability
without the risk of their children friends and families becoming
targets of revenge attacks. It requires outside assistance or the
problem will continue indefinitely
I have witnessed severe unprovoked beatings committed by uniformed
members of The Royal Thai Police between 2005 up to January 2010.
I have witnessed four incidents of confessions authored and
prepared by members of The Royal Thai Police on each occasion total
fabrications and falsified confessions without any input or
interrogation of the defendant/prisoner. On one occasion the
defendant refusing to sign the confession had a live 17,000 volt
tazer held against his chest at heart level whilst demands were
made for the defendant to sign the falsified confession (2009
Bangrak Police Station Bangkok).
In 1989 Bangrak Police Bangkok posing as the CIA offered to kill
someone for me who owed me UK £8000. There was a rumour for years
that the American CIA were exchanging weapons for Heroin during the
war with Laos. I believe it was members of The Royal Thai Police
using the identity CIA.
I've spent 25 years mingling with every sector of Thailand's
society and citizens. The Royal Thai Police are the main problem,
their threat gagging politicians and preventing the end of
corruption. The only solution is to disband the existing police
force and open a new modern structured system of policing with new
officers. In Thailand the mafia are the police and vice versa.
An example of The Royal Thai Police killing children and then
framing an innocent citizen can be read in the enclosed report
Link (RTF): http://www.alrc.net/doc/doc/chr61/ALRC-11d-
Flawed_policing_in_Thailand.rtf
Link (PDF): http://www.alrc.net/doc/doc/chr61/pdf/40-ALRC-11d-
Flawed_policing_in_Thailand.pdf
The Royal Thai Police consider torture as an acceptable means of
interrogation and action on detainees to be charged/indicted.
If you look at this film carefully you will see it is members of
The Royal Thai Police (like the man with red base ball cap) who are
man handling the prisoners.
The Royal Thai Army do not wear trainers sports shoes when on duty.
If you look carefully you will see some of those in part combat
clothes are wearing trainer running shoes, these people are members
of The Royal Thai Police. It seems to be those that have taken
people away, perhaps the nine people that were badly beaten?
The police have again plundered the goodwill of The Royal Thai
Army, wound them up and dumped the blame upon the military.
http://thailand.ahrchk.net/takbai/ see section 3 . Sadly some of
the people that died were friends of mine.
Please write (in Thai or any other language) and complain about
Thai police corruption to Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
of NATO via this link
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-3B4BFD35-E159A3B6/natolive/contact.htm
It was Bangrak CIA police (in their little office to the rear of
the main Bangrak Police Station) who held a switch on 17,000 volt
taser against my chest at heart level when I refused to sign a
falsified statement. Of course I signed , but I signed the
statement under duress.
On another occasion a member of The Royal Thai Police CIA asked me
to pay 300,000 Baht (£6000) to have someone removed from some
digital surveillance film footage due to be forwarded to Interpol.
The Thai person I knew was in 15 seconds of the film footage,
allegedly with some major Thai drug dealers in a luxury apartment.
This Thai CIA officer wanted me to pay the money and they'd have
the film edited. I responded "leave her in the film then she can
never be used as a mule/courier".
Subject: Fwd: Bangrak Police and their illegal cache of grenades
Here is some news about an arms cache (possibly stolen by members
of Bangrak Police from the Thai military). This cache of arms was
found near Bangrak Police Station and the Sriphaya Hotel where they
fired a gun at me for no warranted reason whatsoever. They hid the
bullet dent by ceramic tiling the underside of the top of the steel
fire escape platform 9th floor of Sriphaya Hotel. If you look
underneath the top platform you will see white ceramic floor tiles.
I have never seen tiles underneath the top platform of a fire
escape anywhere else in my life. This was Bangrak Police attempting
to conceal they had unlawfully fired a bullet at someone with a
hand gun,
According to Thai law The Royal Thai Police are not legally
permitted to shot a gun at anyone until they have first been shot
at with a gun by someone else. I was totally unarmed all I had was
a cigarette lighter.
I believe Mr Suksan who may have been living outside Bangkok for
sometime may be the victim of third parties connected to Bangrak
Police storing grenades they have stolen from the military. Nobody
in their right mind would store 4 grenades and launchers plus 750
AK47 rounds of ammunition on property listed in their name. My
prediction is with proper uncorrupted investigation he will be
found innocent, set up as a scape goat. Bangrak Police will be
behind the theft and intended use of these grenades.
The Southern Bangkok Criminal Court had issued a warrant for the
arrest of Suksan Rangwiren on charges of illegal possession of
weapons and ammunition.
On Oct 7 police searched the room and found one rocket-propelled
grenade (RPG) launcher, four RPG grenades, and 750 rounds of AK47
ammunition. Police suspected the weapons belonged to Mr Suksan,
who rented the room.
Mr Suksan admitted he rented the room from January to May this year
while working as a security guard at the former office of the Puea
Thai Party, which is located near the shop house, but said he did
not know anything about the weapons found by police.
He said he resigned his job and left the room in May and returned
to his home in Wanon Niwat district in Sakon Nakhon province.
He traveled to Chumphon on Oct 2 to visit a relative, Sangwian
Rangwiren, who was sick.
In Chumphon, he contacted police and surrendered on Tuesday after
learning that a warrant had been issued for his arrest.
Pol Col Panudet na Phatthalung, chief of Muang Chumphon district
police, said Mr Suksan would be handed over to Bang Rak police for
further questioning.
Mr Suksan is a scape-goat for Bangrak Police and their mafia
associates. It is Bangrak Police who need to be arrested and
prosecuted, they should not play any part in any further
investigations.
In the past I heard some of the police and their mafia discussing
how they would share out condominium developments, once they have
trashed the government of Thailand. I could not believe my ears
these mafia maniacs were talking about how they'd take over
Thailand. They argued about who would get which condo developments
as their share of the proceeds of ruining Thailand's democracy.
They must be out of their crazy minds. I heard these conversation
on at least ten separate occasions because they were offering some
of the expected assets to members of the mafia for helping them
ruin the government of Thailand.
There are some other matters I have learnt about concerning Bangrak
Police corruption that I have presented to The Secretary General of
NATO and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejajiva.
Abhisit said he had a chance to discuss the role of Thailand with
the UN Secretary General while he was in New York.
PM Abhisit Vejajiva met delegates at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM)
summit in Brussels last week.
Following Prime Minister Abisit Vejajiva's visit to Brussels, home
of the office of The Secretary General of NATO Mr Anders Fogh
Rasmussen he said. "My recent trip to foreign countries is
considered successful as I have explained the situation in Thailand
to foreign leaders and they have given support to the country's
effort to bring about stability. They want to see Thailand solve
the problems under democratic laws (not corruption).
Bangrak Police Station has prison cells that are very dirty,
unhygienic, dilapidated and a breach of basic human rights. It is
common practice in Bangrak, Yannawa and Thungmahamek Police
Stations for Royal Thai Police officers to prepare confession
statements without a formal interview and sole input confession of
their prisoner. In every case I have seen the police in these
stations have written the confessions themselves without reference
to the content through their prisoner. These statements are 100%
falsified and prepared in order to convict a prisoner to prison,
when in at least 30% of cases the prisoners are innocent and did
not commit the crimes alleged. The police officers need to be
suspended and prosecuted.
Please write (in Thai or any other language) and complain about
Thai police corruption to Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
of NATO via this link
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-3B4BFD35-E159A3B6/natolive/contact.htm
In a period of two months there has been a rash of unsolved deaths
of Foreigners in Phuket Thailand. One Canadian man in Patong,shot
multiple times in dispute over property, one British man living and
working out of a shop house, head bashed in, near-by the Lotus
Super Store By-pass road, poisoning of an American lady, a
Norwegian lady and two other foreign persons on Kho Pi Pi island,
and lastly one British lady found face down in the sand on Keron
beach strangled to death.
None of these cases have been found to have any weight within the
public news media in Thailand other than reports in the local
Phuket Gazette, when it reports and then never follows up as is the
norm here on the island. To date no person or persons have been
found by local police and prosecuted for any of the alleged
crimes/murders. Foreign Embassy Staff have registered their dismay
along political circles, but as is common practice this leads to
embarrassing faces all around.
The recent death of the American lady on Kho Pi Pi was said to have
the body taken to Bangkok for a autopsy by local police, however it
was later established that the body was subsequently cremated
without an autopsy having been performed. It has been established
that the Thai authorities did however provide slices of the
deceased skin for further examination by the deceased family at
their own cost back in America.
I'm wondering if this is some sort of pattern being established
regarding expected follow-up by local and Bangkok police following
foreigners deaths in the Kingdom Of Thailand? Is this a cover-up to
save face for the future safety of foreign visitor's and tourists.
It seems a backward way of doing so since all the foreign press are
covering these as well as multiple other stories regarding life
within Thailand.
Please write (in Thai or any other language) and complain about
Thai police corruption to Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
of NATO via this link
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-3B4BFD35-E159A3B6/natolive/contact.htm
THAILAND: False criminal cases much more than a problem of money
An October 17 article in the Bangkok Post reported that the
Ministry of Justice there has to pay hundreds of millions of Thai
Baht in compensation to people who have been wrongfully prosecuted
for crimes they did not commit.
The law providing for compensation, the Compensation for Victims of
Crime Act BE 2544 (2001), arises from the 1997 Constitution of
Thailand, which the military abrogated on September 19. Among
relevant provisions, section 246 held that
"Any person who has become the accused in a criminal case and has
been detained during the trial shall, if it appears from the final
judgement of that case that the accused did not commit the offence
or the act of the accused does not constitute an offence, be
entitled to appropriate compensation, expenses and the recovery of
any right lost on account of that incident, upon the conditions and
in the manner provided by law."
According to the Post, the head of the Department of Rights and
Liberties Protection has urged criminal investigators to get proof
before arresting suspects, because his department has to pay out
250 million Thai Baht (USD 6.7 million) for 2890 cases of false
charges from last year alone. As its entire annual budget is only
420 million Thai Baht (USD 11 million), it will spread the payments
over two years, leaving the question hanging as to where the money
will come from to pay those persons who claim compensation this
year. The director, Charnchao Chaiyanukij, was quoted as saying
that,
"I would like to call on state officials involved in investigating
the cases to collect clear evidence before making arrests, because
wrongfully charged people, to whom the government has to pay
compensation, account for more than 30 per cent of the cases
deliberated."
Where large numbers of serious criminal cases can be clearly
identified as resting on false charges, something has gone awfully
wrong. While the development of a law and office for payment of
compensation to victims of state injustice in Thailand under the
1997 Constitution is laudable, the issue cannot stop there. It is
not just a matter of compensation and the problems that it is
causing for the limited budget of a small government department.
Rather, the claims for compensation are symptomatic of deeper
ailments in the entire criminal justice system. These demand many
more serious questions. They include the following.
What is wrong with the supervisory system of the police?
Criminal investigation is central to policing. Where large numbers
of persons are being arrested, charged and tried without evidence,
it means that there are serious defects in the police. The
organisational structure of the police should guarantee supervision
of investigators by superiors, and scrutiny of their work before it
is used to deprive someone of his or her liberty. If the problem of
false charges in Thailand is to be addressed, it is necessary to
deal with this failure of supervision. It is also necessary to
address long-recognised structural problems in the police force
that have arisen due to its being built on principles of self
sufficiency rather than centralised state support and control.
What percentage of cases is deliberately fabricated?
Among the wrongful serious criminal charges, while a certain number
may simply be due to careless police work, others will have been
deliberately concocted against innocent people, in exchange for
cash or other favours.
The police in Thailand are almost universally recognised as
thoroughly corrupt and frequent users of torture and other means to
extract confessions and falsify material evidence. They also have
strong links with the crime world.
Under these circumstances, it is not sufficient to urge
investigators to check the facts before submitting a case. This may
simply lead to more sophisticated falsification of evidence,
particularly where the charges are serious, as in the cases
demanding compensation from the government. The real issues go to
the nature of justice and society in Thailand. Is the level of
criminal intimidation in the society so high that the guilty
persons cannot be prosecuted and innocent ones used instead? Are
the police so heavily influenced by criminals that they will sooner
falsify cases than seek to locate and charge the culprits? How can
these deep institutional and social problems be addressed?
What is wrong with the laws and procedures on evidence?
The 1997 Constitution brought with it many reforms aimed at
improving the delivery and management of criminal justice in
Thailand. It contained specific provisions on the getting of
evidence before arrest and inadmissibility of confessions obtained
through torture or other illegal means. Notwithstanding, the
judicial system in Thailand has still tended to rely
disproportionately on police and witness testimony. This makes it
easy for police to lodge wrongful charges against innocent persons.
One important way to address this imbalance is to place a greater
emphasis on forensic evidence, particularly when obtained by
independent professionals. In Thailand, the Central Institute of
Forensic Science has been a pioneer in this field; however, as it
has challenged the established authority of the police it has been
subject to heavy attacks and its work unnecessarily hampered. Much
more needs to be done to develop the institute and the laws and
procedures to admit and utilise reliable forensic evidence from
reputed experts in conjunction with testimony. As Thailand is a
modern and advanced society with more resources compared to many
other countries in Asia, there is no acceptable reason for its
criminal justice system to be left behind. Much more attention must
be paid to scientific methods of investigation and the bringing of
specialist testimony into the courts in Thailand.
What is wrong with the public prosecution?
The responsibility of the public prosecutor is to review cases
before taking them to trial. However, it is widely known that in
Thailand the prosecutor acts with little independence and relies
almost exclusively upon whatever is given by the police or other
criminal investigators. The prosecutor is not involved in the
investigation work, except in some special cases. One person
working for the office has described it as a "meatball factory":
whatever it gets, it grinds up and serves to the courts without
question. The unprofessional behaviour and lack of independence of
the prosecutor's office also is a serious barrier to addressing the
high number of false cases going to the courts.
The announcement by the director of the Rights and Liberties
Protection Department that his agency is struggling to pay off the
large number of compensation claims lodged by wrongfully charged
persons needs to receive widespread attention in Thailand. It is
not simply a matter of budget; it is a matter of justice.
The Asian Human Rights Commission urges all concerned branches of
government to pay serious consideration to his request for evidence-
based investigations, rather than evidence-free investigations, and
examine the wider implications for their work. Above all, deep
institutional defects in the police must be tackled: these have
been known and studied for decades but are as yet among the biggest
obstacles to the rule of law in Thailand. The AHRC also calls for
widespread discussion about the problems among concerned
professionals, which could be spearheaded by the Lawyers Council of
Thailand and the National Human Rights Commission. They know the
problems well, and are in a position to respond to them directly
and concertedly. Only this way can the needed institutional
solutions be found, and the costs of compensating victims of
systemic injustice thereby be reduced.
Perhaps it is a problem that The National Human Rights Commission
is staffed in part by former members of The Royal Thai Police some
of whom are acquainted with Mr Thaksin Shinawatra.
Erik Young
(cousin of Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen of NATO)
Tel: 44-1483548869
GU50SS
I been to Chiang Mai Thailand, and I'm so sick of all what I 've heard around the city... I heard of a place where Pedophiles are visiting to have sex with minor children, I wish to report the place and please let me kow who is the person incharged or an authority incharged regarding this issues... I cant believe theres such thing in here.. police should take action on this immediately and save this children from being lured with money by an old man just to have sex... pls send me link to make a report of such alleged sex haven... and local people should not close their eyes on this issues, they should help protect their children and help police by reporting alleged illegal activities around them...
First the Thai government should stop the child sellers. Those children are not giving themselves to elderly but they arer simply sold by their parents. So if the Thai government stop these people sellig their own children, thenforeigners wouldn't dare to make any attempt. What do they win if they prison tha old man, thousands of them arein Thailand streets, they should end the source of this business, which everyone have been closing eyes for years.
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