Emergency decree gets extended

Published on October 19, 2005 - Controversial law making things worse, critics claim. The Cabinet yesterday extended the controversial state of emergency for the deep South despite mounting insistence from lawmakers and civic leaders that the sweeping powers granted to security authorities by the law have done little to pacify the troubled region.

“The government has no choice but to extend the state of emergency. The situation requires us to do so,” Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra insisted.

The emergency law permits the government to declare a state of emergency that is renewable every three months.

The current application, declared on July 20 and due to expire tomorrow, allows officials to exercise their authority at will through a variety of moves: impose curfews, ban public gatherings, limit travel, censor newspapers, ban publications, hold suspects without charge for 30 days, confiscate property, and wiretap telephones.

In defence of the measures, Thaksin pointed out that even such entrenched liberal democracies as the US and Britain, in their war on terrorism, permit suspects to be detained up to three and six months, respectively.

“So let’s not be more Catholic than the Pope,” Thaksin quipped.

One clause of the emergency decree that has irked its critics is legislation to grant immunity to officials from civil, criminal, and disciplinary action for acts carried out under the decree’s provisions, including the killing of suspects.

Vocal critics of the government’s handling of the ongoing insurgency in the deep South have said the law will only succeed in further alienating members of the Malay-Muslim majority. Since hostilities first erupted in January 2004, more than 1,000 people have been killed in attacks by militants and violent clashes between insurgents and security forces.

“The emergency law is only making local Muslims more wary of government officials because they feel the law gives authorities a licence to murder them with impunity,” said Maha Sarakham Senator Thongbai Thongbao, a prominent human rights advocate.

He insisted that normal criminal laws were sufficient to cope with the insurgency.

“The problem is not the absence of adequate laws; rather, it is the government’s lack of understanding of the root causes of the violence,” Thongbai said.

Narathiwat Senator Umar Thoyib noted that even with the emergency decree in effect for the past three months, violence in the region has continued unabated.

“The state of emergency has not only failed to contain violence but has created even more grievances in the local Muslim community,” Umar said.

As an example, he cited the case of 131 Thai Muslims who recently crossed into Malaysia to seek political asylum there, allegedly in fear of retaliation from security forces.

Meanwhile, the Central Islamic Committee of Thailand has issued a statement expressing its condolences to the families of the monk and two temple boys savagely attacked and murdered by suspected militants on Sunday.

The committee condemned the killings, during which some 20 suspected Muslim separatists stormed a monastery in Pattani, hacked an elderly Buddhist monk to death, and shot two temple boys dead. The attackers then proceeded to torch the monks’ living quarters.