Rights groups slam harassment of Thai Muslim activist

Thailand

Attack on Angkhana Neelapaijit’s house seen as a troubling development

The harassment of a prominent Thai rights advocate has drawn condemnation from rights groups that have called on authorities to investigate.

An unidentified woman wearing a mask threw a pair of large scissors at Angkhana Neelapaijit’s house in Bangkok before running away on April 12, according to CCTV camera footage.

The scissors made a hole in the front door of the outspoken rights advocate, who once served as a commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission and is now a member of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.

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Following the incident, Angkhana, 66, said she and her family are feeling vulnerable because the Justice Ministry canceled her personal protection under the government’s witness protection program on April 1 with the authorities saying she was no longer in danger of being harmed.

The Muslim woman rose to prominence in Thailand as a rights defender after her husband, Somchai Neelapaijit, a lawyer in southern Thailand who represented Muslim men accused of participating in an armed insurgency against the state, disappeared in 2004.

Somchai, who accused the authorities of torturing and abusing Muslim detainees, was forced into a car in Bangkok and has not been seen since in what rights group say was a clear case of enforced disappearance. 

“Violent acts intended to intimidate a well-known figure like Angkhana not only pose a threat to her and her family but send a spine-chilling message to the entire Thai human rights community”

Rights groups say the attack on Angkhana’s house was a troubling development.

“Violent acts intended to intimidate a well-known figure like Angkhana not only pose a threat to her and her family but send a spine-chilling message to the entire Thai human rights community,” Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“The Thai government should respond immediately by undertaking a serious investigation to ensure that everyone responsible for this incident is held accountable.” 

Angkhana has long been a thorn in the side of Thai authorities with her outspoken stance on cases of enforced disappearances in the Southeast Asian nation.

Over the years scores of rights activists, environmental campaigners and political dissidents have disappeared under suspicious circumstances. Investigations into these disappearances have stalled or been quietly been dropped.

“[Thai] citizens might fall victim to torture or enforced disappearance, but the state is not ready to hold perpetrators accountable,” warned Piyanut Kotsan, director of Amnesty International Thailand.

For years Angkhana has been calling for justice for the disappeared and their loved ones, but so far in vain. “The families of the disappeared, including myself, are still waiting for justice,” the rights advocate once noted.

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