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Published on February 4, 2008

The youngest documented victim is a four-year-old boy. In 1992 he had his bottom boiled in hot water, was kept in a dog cage and forced to eat fresh chilli and boiling soup by a police officer, said Siroj Mingkhwan, chairman of the association.

The unidentified boy was a son of a man who asked his police neighbour to take care of him when he was at work.

The association's records showed that the victims of police brutality ranged from prostitutes, the mentally ill, Buddhist monks and foreign tourists to amputee veterans in wheelchairs.

The cases of abuse were documented between 1988 to the present - with a large number dying, suffering permanent injury or being "disappeared".

Techniques used to frame suspects or innocent people or to impose more serious charges for crimes not committed included torture, humiliation and degradation, physical assault, blackmail, deliberate inaction or wrongful arrest.

In many cases police negotiators urged suicidal people to jump to their death during rescue operations, while rape and sexual molestation were widely inflicted on women or female prisoners.

There are also reports about police forcing inmates in their custody to beat up fellow inmates, in many cases resulting in death. Those responsible for the assaults were then charged with murder.

The rate of abuse cases decreased to 1.9 a month between 1998 and today, compared with two a month in the first 10 years. The decrease was attributed to greater public awareness over human rights and the new constitution.

The Nation