By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch SDO, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – The red-shirt political rallies against Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajajiva ongoing in central Bangkok over the past couple months attained new peaks of violence recently.  An explosion and subsequent gunshots were heard ringing throughout the the protesters’ camp out zone, killing at least one protester.  Thailand military troops invaded the vicinity after the red-shirts failed to adhere to a threat asserting that if they did not cease their rallying, essential utilities such as water and electricity for the region of the camp would be terminated.  However, after the Thai government decided against fulfilling their warning for fear of the ramifications for surrounding, non-occupied areas.

Witnesses among the red-shirts claimed that droves of troops started moving into their camp after the explosions and gunshots began.  There were also reports of numerous casualties and a severe head injury incurred by former General Khattiya Sawasdipol after receiving a bullet during an interview.  The ex-General may have been a specified target, as Sawasdipol has been a vocal red-shirt protester and has even advocated more radical means of expressing discontent with the current governmental regime.  Sawasdipol is also notorious for representing a polarizing figure within the red-shirt protesters themselves.  Sawasdipol has often articulated his belief that the less radical red-shirts are an inadequate arm of their cause, alienating many of his own previous supporters and deterring others from joining his own, more extreme rally.

Following the initial strike against the red-shirt protesters, military forces have been creating an armed barricade surrounding the camp with army tanks and other armaments.  Although no further violence seems to have occurred since the initial incident, tensions in the center of the capital city have increased as the government proliferates its presence.  Moreover, although the government did not cut off services in the protesters’ camp area as declared, lighting in particular parts of the city have been cut off.  The lack of electricity running through the streets has cast a great darkness over the streets, further pushing the red-shirts into a corner and perpetuating animosities.

The Thai government claims that the military barricade around the red-shirt camp is meant to allow innocent protesters to leave, but not let anyone else into  the camp.  However, the imposition still creates an overall deterrence for a peaceable situation that makes the goal of tranquility difficult to reach.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Gunfire heard in the Thai capital area – 13 May 2010

BBC – Thai red-shirt supporter Gen Khattiya shot – 13 May 2010

CNN – Thai protester shot, killed… – 13 May 2010

By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch SDO,  Asia

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan – Female students in Kabul and the Kunduz province of Afghanistan recently began falling ill and hospitalized after what is now being suspected as a poison attack.  Victims were admitted to the hospital after manifesting symptoms such as vomiting  and blinking in and out of consciousness.  The exact number of affected girls has not yet been confirmed, but  female students continue to enter hospitals demonstrating similar symptoms.  Although the illness contracted from the apparent poison attacks does not seem severe and the inflicted girls are being released from the hospital after only a few days, these attacks do have grave implications concerning the state of Afghanistan and the manner in which anti-government forces are willing to illustrate their beliefs.

Young students reported seeing their classmates suddenly begin to vomit and pass out on the floors after catching a strange odor in the hallways of their schools.  Some reported that the teachers pardoned the small as nothing to worry about.  However, the girls themselves took initiative to alert the police after witnessing their classmates fall ill and collapse.

The poison attacks have been considered a terror tactic to express the idea that females should have no right to education.  The purpose of the attacks seem to be to scare the families of the students and refuse to send them to school because of the constant present dangers.  This terror tactic also has the effect of suggesting that even places of education which house young girls are not safe from the subjugation of those who oppose the Afghan government and its collaboration with other governments.

The Taliban has explicitly denied responsibility for the poison attacks on the students.  Authorities themselves do not seem to know as of yet whether or not the destructive actions signify a poison gas attack or food poisoning.  However, this instance represents one of a continual chain of similar attacks on girls schools over the past couple years, taking place in numerous areas of Afghanistan.  One particularly notorious trend of strikes occurred in Kandahar two years ago, in which male motorbike riders drove by students and splashed their faces with acid.  The attacks on females students have caused many schools to close down.  Also, as a  condition of the Taliban rule from 1996-2001, education for women was legally prohibited.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – ‘Gas attack’ targets Afghan girls – 12  May 2010

BBC – “Mass illness’ hits Afghan girls in Kunduz – 25 April 2010

The Huffington Post – Afghan Schoolgirls Fall Ill, Poison Feared – 25 April 2010

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Despite talks of abolishing the capital punishment system, Taiwan has executed four men.  These executions, whereby the inmates were shot by a firing squad, were Taiwan’s first since December 2005. 

Although death penalty is a sensitive issue in Taiwan, it is widely supported by the Taiwanese public.  In fact, the former justice minister resigned in March because the Minister refused to sign death warrants for prisoners. 

However, a human rights group called the Foundation for Judicial Reform condemned the recent executions saying, “We are shocked and angered . . . the justice ministry sped up the executions in a reckless process despite concerns over capital punishment.”

This Taiwanese rights group is claiming that the Justice Ministry purposely hastened the process for the four inmates who were executed. 

Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Deputy Director Catherine Baber said, “These executions cast a dark shadow on the country’s human rights record and blatantly contradict the Justice Minister’s previously declared intention to abolish the death penalty.”

In defense, Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice released a statement saying that the prisoners were “put to death according to the laws as the four were convicted of grave offenses,” adding that the executed inmates “did not request Constitutional interpretations of their cases.”  Taiwan reserve capital punishment for serious offenses, such as aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery.

Nevertheless Baber said, “The world was looking to the Taiwanese authorities to choose human rights, and to show leadership on the path towards abolishing the death penalty in the Asia-Pacific.  [The] executions extinguished that hope.”

Along with Amnesty International, Taiwanese Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) also expressed its “shock and anger.”  TAEDP often raises the question of legality over executions, and with regards to the recent executions, TAEDP’s Executive Director Lin Hsin-yi said that the executions were “furtively and hastily” carried out without notice to the inmates’ families.

49 Taiwanese were put to death between 2000 and 2005.

For more information, please see:

AFP – Taiwan rights groups lash out at executions – 1 May 2010

BBC – Taiwan conducts rare executions – 1 May 2010

Focus Taiwan – Rights groups condemn Taiwan’s executions – 1 May 2010

By Hyo-Jin Paik
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BEIJING, China – The twenty year old ban prohibiting foreign travelers with HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, and leprosy from entering China has been lifted.

The Chinese government lifted the ban on Tuesday.  The revision comes just days before the opening of the Shanghai World Expo.

China’s State Council said that several provisions in the Border Quarantine Law and the Law on Control of the Entry and Exit of Aliens, which were implemented in the 1980s, are being revised because the ban was imposed two decades ago with “limited knowledge about HIV/AIDS and other diseases.”  However, the Chinese authorities have now come to a conclusion that such ban had either limited or very small influence in controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases in China.

UN Secretary General Bank Ki-moon praised China and President Hu Jintao for lifting the ban saying, “Punitive policies and practices only hamper the global AIDS response.”

The United States also welcomed China’s move.  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “I commend China’s decision to lift its ban . . . China’s step . . . is supposed by current medical knowledge of HIV transmission and risk.”

Clinton added that the long-standing policy of prohibiting people with HIV from entering the country will also help reduce the stigma and discrimination around this global epidemic.

Those inside China also believe that Chinese government’s lifting of the ban is a step towards progress.  Medical professor at Qingdao University and an advocate for rights of people living with HIV (PLWHIV), Zhang Beichuan, said, “Previously, China viewed HIV/AIDS as an imported disease related to corrupted lifestyle.  But now the government handles it with public health perspective.”

He Tiantian, a Chinese woman in her 30s living with HIV also said, “This revision shows us a silver lining, because we have advocating for the rights of PLWHIV . . . now we know we didn’t do it in vain.”

Nevertheless, He added that it will “take time to end discrimination, but the change in the government’s stance will help change the public’s attitude . . . .”

According to the Health Ministry, the estimated number of those living with HIV in China was approximately 740,000 as of October 2009 and almost 50,000 Chinese have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS since the disease was first reported in 1985.
For more information, please see:

China Daily – China lifts entry ban on HIV/AIDS foreigners – 29 April 2010

RTT News – China Lifts Ban Imposed on HIV-Infected Foreign Travelers – 27 April 2010

Zee News – China lifts ban on entry of HIV individuals; US welcomes – 30 April 2010

By M.E. Dodge
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

BANGKOK, Thailand – A major hospital evacuated patients and suspended operations, except emergency surgical procedures, after Red-Shirt, anti-government, protesters surged the hospital in search of security personnel they suspected were using the hospital as a lookout of their base.

  A “red shirt” anti-government protester is detained by Thai soldiers on a street near the residence of Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Photograph courtesy of Time.

Hospital directors and administrators pleaded with the group not to enter, and after storming the building, and not finding police or military within, the group of protestors withdrew back to their nearby barricaded enclave.

Following the incident, Thailand’s Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, whom the protesters seek to overthrow, went on nationwide television to criticize Red Shirt actions, which he states are paralyzing areas of central Bangkok. In a press release, Vejjajiva stated, ”It’s not necessary for me to condemn (the hospital break-in) since Thai society and the world community have already done that,” and went on to say that the government would ”not allow any movements that pose threats to the public.”

In mid-April Thailand experienced a resurgence of turmoil as minority and majority interests clash. The ideological divergence created a standoff between street protesters, under the United Front for Democracy, against Dictatorship and the government of Abhisit Vejjajiva. The situation has left the country in a perpetual state of unrest. So far, there have been26 reported deaths and hundreds of people injured.

Security forces, in almost every recent instance of protestor violence and activity, have  been unable or unwilling to stop the Red Shirt forays, including that of the hospital breach. In commenting on the group’s actions, Weng Tojirakarn, a Red Shirt leader and medical doctor, issued a ”deep apology” for the raid staged by up to 100 protesters. He told reporters that is was, ”inappropriate, too much, and unreasonable.”

The nation also fears a backlash from another factious group, the Yellow Shirts, who, back in 2008, were responsible for closing Bangkok’s airports for one week. People in Thailand are worried they may also engage in the hostile unrest by further inflicting street violence.

Many believe that to bring these turbulent times to an end, ultimately, Thailand will have to find a way to have majority rule with the protection of minority rights. Some posit this may mean that the Prime Minister will need to make the country’s hierarchy less prohibitive of minority concerns.

 For more information, please see:

The Guardian – Compromise is the only answer to the Thai crisis – 30 April 2010

The New York Times – Thai Protesters Storm Hospital – 30 April 2010

Associated Press – Thai hospital evacuated after protesters storm it – 30 April 2010