Three female political dissidents, two of whom were forced to undertake pelvic examination, recalled their ordeal in women’s prison while human rights lawyers urged the Thai authorities not to violate the rights of detainees.
Ladawan Wongsriwong, the former Deputy Labour Minister, on Tuesday, 3 May 2016, urged Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the junta leader and Prime Minister, to enact orders to stop the Department of Corrections (DC) to perform pelvic examination on detainees who are not suspects on drug related crimes, saying it is extremely humiliating for female detainees, Matichon Online reported.
“I’m worrying that the rights of eight detainees one of whom is a woman who were arrested on political offences and denied bail will be violated,” Matichon quoted Ladawan as saying. “Gen Prayut should order the DC to halt and cancel rules which contravene with the principles of human dignity enshrined under Section 44 of the Interim Charter.”
The statement from Ladawan reflected the recent public outcry on the harassment of Kornkanok Khumta, a student activist of New Democracy Movement (NDM) from Thammasat University, who was sent the Central Women Correction Institute in Bangkok last month by the Military Court for participating in an activity to demand investigation of corruption allegations surrounding the construction of the military’s Rajabhakti Park.
The military prosecutors indicted Kornkanok together with five other activists on 25 April 2016. Despite the fact that the court granted her bail on the same, Kornkanok was sent to the Central Women Correction Institute where she was forced to take off all her clothes in front of many people and forced to undertake pelvic examination before she was released.
“I felt like I was an animal or something. The prison staff knew then that I was granted bail, but they didn’t tell me,” Kornkanok wrote on her Facebook account on 26 April.
Kornkanok Khumta
According to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR), Theerawan Charoensuk, 57, an anti-establishment red shirt from Chiang Mai Province charged with Article 116, the sedition law, for posting on Facebook a picture of herself holding the red bowl with the Songkran message from Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister, experienced similar treatments in prison.
Theerawan was sent to prison briefly before the Military Court of Chiang Mai granted her 100,000 baht bail on 30 March. In prison, she said that she was forced to be naked and to repeatedly sit and stand in front of two prison officers to check if she had hidden objects in her vagina despite the fact that she informed the officers that she was already granted bail. The prison staff, however, did not perform pelvic examination on her.
“It made me crazy. It felt as if I was in hell and it was as if I was already a prisoner. I never thought that I would experience something like that,” TLHR quoted Theerawan as saying.
She added that there is a strict hierarchy in prison, saying that detainees have to crawl on the floor and put their hands together in wai gesture while talking with the prison staff.
Theerawan Charoensuk
Another political dissident, Jittra Kotchadej,a former president of Triumph Labour Union and democracy activist, recounted similar experiences when she was sent to the Central Women’s Correctional Institute for allegedly violating the junta’s summon order after the 2014 coup d’état because she was in Sweden when the summon order was issued.
Jittra was imprisoned at the Central Women’s Correctional Institute briefly in June 2014 before the Military Court granted her bail. She told Prachatai then that she was forced to remove all her cloths amid presence of many prison staff and was forced undertake pelvic examination.
“The process upon entering the Women’s Correctional Institute is like you are already a prisoner. It is a process which makes you a prisoner and treats you as if you are imprisoned for committing criminal offences,” Jittra told Prachatai.
According to the TLHR, such procedures to search the body of female detainees forced upon them by the prison staff violate the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules) as Article 51 of the rules states that searches shall not be used to harass, intimidate or unnecessarily intrude upon a prisoner’s privacy.
Moreover, article 52 of the rules adds that intrusive searches, including strip and body cavity searches, should be undertaken only if absolutely necessary and prison administrations shall be encouraged to develop and use appropriate alternatives to intrusive searches.
The TLHR added that under the normal judicial procedures by the civilian court, the authorities do not have to sent suspects to prison as they are waiting for bail. However, in case of the Military Court, the authorities will take suspects to prison before they are released on bail and they are forced to undertake searchers as if they are prisoners of criminal offences.
Jittra Kotchadej