Making a mountain out of a molehill

Thai authorities once again shot themselves in the foot when they attempted to stop representatives of Amnesty International (AI) from releasing a report highlighting the use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment against individuals in custody.
Police and Labour Ministry officials thought they were acting smart by playing up technicalities, asking if the AI representatives had a proper visa to be eligible to launch the report and hold the subsequent press conference in Bangkok.
They must be seriously naïve if they can’t see the political underpinnings of the report. Or perhaps they were following orders of equally naive superiors who also failed to see the political underpinning of the accusations.
It was case of Thai authorities
flexing their muscles to show their authority.
It’s hard to believe that these officials did not realise their attempt to block the release of the report was cosmetic at best. In the Internet era, the report could be uploaded from anywhere. By cracking down needlessly, brandishing technicalities, to stop the AI representatives from launching the report, the authorities ended up generating interest in the report among people who would otherwise not have paid much attention to it.
There are many atrocities committed around the world by state and non-state actors. An assortment of human rights groups are highlighting these violations through their reports and findings. As advocacy groups, it is only natural for them to hope for as much public attention as possible in the hope that there would be policy changes, or at least changes in the authorities’ conduct and behaviour.
By their officious behaviour, Thai officials only ended up helping AI with their promotional campaign.
Thai officials torturing people in custody is nothing new, not to mention that some detainees have even lost their lives in detention cells. The treatment of suspects in the far South is an example of such behaviour although nobody in the country seems to suffer any angst because of that. Because these minorities are not Thais like us?
The authorities can cry hoarse, arguing that there is no evidence. But if nobody believes their story, it calls for some introspection and an urgent need for action that can restore the faith and trust of the public about the conduct of these agencies.
These security officials are government civil servants, who are accountable to the public. They offer lip service from time to time that the public is their boss. Some police stations even put up such a statement in front of their stations. But do they truly believe that and do we as the public believe that?
If our policymakers have the political courage and the moral authority that they say they do, then they should turn these words into something meaningful. The challenge is how to turn these fancy words into action – to make the police force into an entity that is accountable to the public.
We can start with civilian accountability of the police force. Normal police work should be decentralised in a way that there is some degree
of transparency and accountability with civilian oversight.
A similar principle should be applied to the Armed Forces. But that does not seem likely in Thailand. Thais who bothered to come out and vote just gave the military the much-needed stamp of approval in the August 7 referendum on the draft charter that basically cements their place in Thai politics for a long time.
But if politicians have the courage to stand up to the generals, they could come up with a platform that curtails their role in military spending. We understand that there are things that the civilians will have to leave to the military people, like operation and strategy.