Published on January 19, 2005

The Corrections Department will go ahead with its plan to broadcast 24-hour live images from “death row” but not the execution chamber.

“We will not show the progress of executions and will not focus on any particular inmates,” Director-General Nathee Chitsawang said yesterday.

The department would install more than 20 closed-circuit cameras in strategic areas within the execution zone in three days, primarily to observe the conduct of both inmates and wardens.

Images from two cameras will be streamed on www.correct.go.th.

One camera in front of the execution zone would observe the checkpoint where guards check inmates for forbidden items and the other camera would focus on the general atmosphere of the execution zone.

“This will help erase the prison’s image as a ‘mysterious zone’ because people can observe everything that happens over 24 hours,” Nathee said.

The images would hopefully encourage people to think twice before doing anything illegal.

“I have already considered the human rights issue and have discussed this with many high-ranking officials in the department. Many of them go along with my idea,” he said.

National Human Rights Commissioner Wasant Panich said he would bring up the issue at the commission’s meeting tomorrow to find ways to take action against the project, which the panel considers to be a breach of human rights.

“Don’t forget that although the inmates paid the penalty for their actions, their relatives didn’t do anything wrong. Why does the department want to shame them?” Wasant said.

Senator Thongbai Thongpao said the department has several projects that expose the lives of inmates. The department believes the projects will make people afraid to engage in illegal activities, but until now no research has been done to study the effects on inmates’ relatives.

“The country has used capital punishment for more than a century but we still can’t suppress crime. So, I don’t think this reality-show project will make anything better.”

The atmosphere in the execution zone would fill viewers of the Internet broadcast with terror, he said.

Justice Minister Pongthep Thepkanjana said the ministry has never considered showing live broadcasts of the final moments before executions or even launching a “reality show” of prisoners’ lives.

He said these projects from his ministry’s department would breach human rights, so the ministry will stop short at setting up closed-circuit cameras, especially in areas where wardens are thought to be corrupt and only senior officials have access. “We only want to set up a transparent system to look after inmates,” Pongthep said.

Piyanuch Thamnukasetchai,

Chatrarat Kaewmorakot

The Nation

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