HRW demands release of 14 Thai activist opposing Junta
Rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Thai authorities to unconditionally release 14 student activists who it said peacefully expressed their opposition to the country’s military rule.
“Thailand’s junta should immediately stop arresting and prosecuting student activists,” HRW’s Asia Director Brad Adams said on Saturday as cited on the organization’s official website.
“While insisting they aren’t dictators, the Thai generals have used the military courts as a central feature of their crackdown against peaceful criticism and political dissent,” he added.
According to the US-based rights group, Thai police officers and troops enforced a military court warrant to arrest 14 students from the Neo-Democracy Movement in the capital Bangkok on Friday on charges of sedition and violating the military junta’s ban on public assembly.
The students are reportedly being held in Bangkok’s Remand Prison and the Central Women Correctional Institution for 12 days awaiting a trial in a military court.
The students, said an HRW press release, participated in peaceful protests urging an end to the military rule in Thailand under the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).
Following their arrest, Army Commander-in-Chief General Udomdej Seetabutr publicly accused the activists of being sponsored by anti-government groups claiming that their efforts could lead to disturbances and violence.
“With each new arrest, Thailand’s path toward democracy is getting harder to find,” Adams noted, adding, “Governments around the world should press the junta to end repression and respect fundamental rights.”
The rights group further stated that the latest arbitrary detentions again point to the military junta’s unwillingness to ease its repressive rule.
It also noted that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), ratified by Thailand in 1996, protects the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. Since the May 2014 military coup, however, the junta has prohibited political gatherings of more than five people.
MFB/NN/HRB
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