Thai soldiers are detaining illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Burma and forcing them back out to sea in boats without engines, survivors say.
Survivors say their hands were tied and they were towed out to sea with little or no food or water.
About 500 migrants are now recovering from acute dehydration in India's Andaman islands and the Indonesian province of Aceh.
Thai officials were not immediately available for comment.
But sources in the police and army confirmed to the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok that asylum seekers are being pushed out to sea. They did not provide further details about the practice.
Thousands of poor Burmese and Bangladeshis try to reach south-east Asian nations in search of work.
Source: BBC
Further reading: http://www.irrawaddy.org/highlight.php?art_id=14933
Thought: And we thought we had it bad.
Thailand accused of abusing asylum seekers
Thailand accused of abusing asylum seekers
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson
The press link also stated it was the military who have pretty much been doing what they like amid all the political chaos so I don't think Abhisit can be blamed for this.
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson
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sandman67
- Rock Star
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- Location: I thought you had the map?
The NationNavy chief Admiral Kamthorn Phumhiran on Friday dismissed a BBC report claiming Thai military had ill-treated the Rohingyas from Burma and Bangladesh who sought work or asylum by pushing them out to sea and setting them adrift.
"The Royal Thai Navy did not badly treated the Rohingyas. There was no setting them adrift as alleged," he said.
Under the military convention, the navy is obligated to rescue enemies from a sunken ship, he said, arguing there is no reason to mistreat the migrants landing on the Thai shore.
In the incident in question, the navy was notified by marine park rangers about the Rohingyas at Kon Sai Daeng, Ranong, he said.
A group of 20 navymen were dispatched to investigate and they found more than 100 Rohingyas, prompting the order for the migrants to lie down for safety reason, he said.
Comment: This is typical of Thai officialdom's lying and stupidity...also the complete lack of investigative/challenging journalism that allows it to continue.
Y see....if they were found by the Thais off the coast of Thailand, or in her territorial waters.....how come they ended up being found off the Andaman Islands...in the opposite direction?
"Science flew men to the moon. Religion flew men into buildings."
"To sin by silence makes cowards of men."
"To sin by silence makes cowards of men."
This one is still big news and Thailand are still trying to squirm out of it:
Thailand says 126 asylum-seekers from the Burmese Rohingya minority who were detained by the military a week ago have been sent back out to sea.
The UN Refugee Agency asked to see the detainees three days ago, but never received a response.
Last month almost 1,000 Rohingyas were detained and then towed out to sea by Thai security forces in boats with little food and no motors.
Hundreds of survivors have been rescued, but hundreds more are missing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7846570.stm
A senior Thai official met ambassadors from neighbouring nations on Friday to discuss illegal immigration after allegations that the Thai army left desperate boat people on the open seas to die.
The allegations, apparently supported by photographs and witness accounts, have further dented the kingdom's tourist-friendly image, already marred by mass protests that shut down airports late last year.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... ihSAYbScDw
Thailand says 126 asylum-seekers from the Burmese Rohingya minority who were detained by the military a week ago have been sent back out to sea.
The UN Refugee Agency asked to see the detainees three days ago, but never received a response.
Last month almost 1,000 Rohingyas were detained and then towed out to sea by Thai security forces in boats with little food and no motors.
Hundreds of survivors have been rescued, but hundreds more are missing.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7846570.stm
A senior Thai official met ambassadors from neighbouring nations on Friday to discuss illegal immigration after allegations that the Thai army left desperate boat people on the open seas to die.
The allegations, apparently supported by photographs and witness accounts, have further dented the kingdom's tourist-friendly image, already marred by mass protests that shut down airports late last year.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... ihSAYbScDw
Who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S Thompson
BBC-The local commander of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), which has been holding the Rohingyas, also insisted, against the weight of evidence, that his men had not mistreated the boat people.
No-one should be surprised at the Thai military's defiance.
That local ISOC commander, Colonel Manas Kongpan, was also one of three military officers a court ruled were responsible for the massacre of 32 Muslim men in southern Thailand five years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7847370.stm
No-one should be surprised at the Thai military's defiance.
That local ISOC commander, Colonel Manas Kongpan, was also one of three military officers a court ruled were responsible for the massacre of 32 Muslim men in southern Thailand five years ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7847370.stm
I read about this on the BBC yesterday and it does look like it's a 'caught at it job'. Going to be hard to 'squirm out of it' because the international agencies are not going to let it go so easy. Looks like it's the truth that it's been happening and the government has been unaware of what's going on, a major embarrassment for the new PM.
A rare glimpse/revealing of the raw truth about who really 'runs the show' and does whatever it likes.
There're going to get properly 'pulled up' on this one.
A rare glimpse/revealing of the raw truth about who really 'runs the show' and does whatever it likes.
There're going to get properly 'pulled up' on this one.
Resolve dissolves in alcohol
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Khundon1975
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Georgy Porgy
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Well, they(Thai military) have pretty much said "Yes it's true, whatever, kiss our arses about it, we'll do what we want and we're going to do it again if we see fit."
Government is powerless over the military units holding them at the moment.
How revealing it all is!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7846570.stm
Government is powerless over the military units holding them at the moment.
How revealing it all is!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7846570.stm
Resolve dissolves in alcohol
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sandman67
- Rock Star
- Posts: 4398
- Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 6:11 pm
- Location: I thought you had the map?
They just made another 160 odd disappear before the UNHCR got to interview them....dragged them out to sea then denied they ever had them...despite saying a few weeks ago they did.
ISOC are totally out of control
Thailand is just a military dictatorship with a democratic gloss....always has been, always will be as long as civilians are fearful of and controlled by an unaccountable large military...which they still haven't worked out they dont need any more.
Time for Abba to grow some stones and lace up the arsekicking boots.
Time for the UN to start turning up the heat on Thailand
...Id start by suspending all UN development grants till the three tinpot "generals" found guilty for the massacres in the south are imprisoned...especially as one of them is responsible for these illegal deportations.
ISOC are totally out of control
Thailand is just a military dictatorship with a democratic gloss....always has been, always will be as long as civilians are fearful of and controlled by an unaccountable large military...which they still haven't worked out they dont need any more.
Time for Abba to grow some stones and lace up the arsekicking boots.
Time for the UN to start turning up the heat on Thailand
...Id start by suspending all UN development grants till the three tinpot "generals" found guilty for the massacres in the south are imprisoned...especially as one of them is responsible for these illegal deportations."Science flew men to the moon. Religion flew men into buildings."
"To sin by silence makes cowards of men."
"To sin by silence makes cowards of men."
More Rohingya land in Thailand, allege Burma abuse: 2 hours 12 minutes ago
BANGKOK (Reuters) – More Rohingya migrants from Myanmar have arrived in Thailand and are being held by police rather than the army, which has towed hundreds of others far out to sea before abandoning them, police said Tuesday.
Police Colonel Veerasilp Kwanseng, head of Paknam district station in Ranong in southwest Thailand, said the navy had handed over 78 Rohingya, an oppressed Muslim minority from the former Burma's northwest.
It is not clear whether this is a change of policy or a publicity stunt widely shown on Thai television to defuse international outrage at persistent allegations of the army abandoning nearly 1,000 Rohingya at sea.
"Most of them were suffering from quite serious exhaustion and required medical assistance. We have local medics looking after them," he told Reuters. "Many had wounds on their bodies, but I don't know exactly what caused them."
Another officer said the migrants, a dozen of whom were under 18, had reported the wounds as whiplashes inflicted by officials in military-ruled Myanmar.
The group's handling by police is a break with the army's secretive processing of other Rohingya on a remote Andaman Sea island before towing them out to sea and abandoning them in rickety, engine-less boats.
A Rohingya rights group says 550 of nearly 1,000 towed out to sea by the army since early December are feared to have drowned.
NBT television showed pictures of the emaciated and exhausted men in the latest group being treated by medics and holding registration papers.
Veerasilp said the men, who were found floating near Thailand's Surin Islands after an unknown period at sea, would be prosecuted for illegal immigration.
The offence carries a fine of up to 2,000 baht, but is seldom enforced in the case of destitute migrants.
"ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION"
More than 230,000 Rohingya are living a precarious, stateless existence in Bangladesh, having fled decades of persecution at the hands of Myanmar's Buddhist generals, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR).
Tens of thousands more have left, often in rickety wooden boats, in search of a better life elsewhere. Many have ended up in Malaysia, where more than 14,000 are formally registered as refugees and thousands more work as casual laborers.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has made much of putting human rights at the center of government but who relies on support from the army, said he wanted four-way talks between Thailand, Bangladesh, India and the UNHCR to address the problem.
"We must work out a solution acceptable to all parties but it must be stressed that we will not allow sustained illegal migration that may put our security at risk," he said, adding that the Foreign Ministry had been asked to approach the UNHCR.
His words do not seem to be getting through.
The UNHCR in Bangkok wrote a formal letter a week ago asking for access to a batch of 126 Rohingya in military custody, but is yet to hear a response to its request.
The army has told the government the group in question is no longer in the country.
A spokesman said Foreign Minister Kasit Piromyas was trying to arrange a meeting with UNHCR in Bangkok but was having problems due to his busy schedule.
However, Kasit has a meeting slated for February 2 with UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres in Geneva after this week's Davos World Economic Forum.
BANGKOK (Reuters) – More Rohingya migrants from Myanmar have arrived in Thailand and are being held by police rather than the army, which has towed hundreds of others far out to sea before abandoning them, police said Tuesday.
Police Colonel Veerasilp Kwanseng, head of Paknam district station in Ranong in southwest Thailand, said the navy had handed over 78 Rohingya, an oppressed Muslim minority from the former Burma's northwest.
It is not clear whether this is a change of policy or a publicity stunt widely shown on Thai television to defuse international outrage at persistent allegations of the army abandoning nearly 1,000 Rohingya at sea.
"Most of them were suffering from quite serious exhaustion and required medical assistance. We have local medics looking after them," he told Reuters. "Many had wounds on their bodies, but I don't know exactly what caused them."
Another officer said the migrants, a dozen of whom were under 18, had reported the wounds as whiplashes inflicted by officials in military-ruled Myanmar.
The group's handling by police is a break with the army's secretive processing of other Rohingya on a remote Andaman Sea island before towing them out to sea and abandoning them in rickety, engine-less boats.
A Rohingya rights group says 550 of nearly 1,000 towed out to sea by the army since early December are feared to have drowned.
NBT television showed pictures of the emaciated and exhausted men in the latest group being treated by medics and holding registration papers.
Veerasilp said the men, who were found floating near Thailand's Surin Islands after an unknown period at sea, would be prosecuted for illegal immigration.
The offence carries a fine of up to 2,000 baht, but is seldom enforced in the case of destitute migrants.
"ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION"
More than 230,000 Rohingya are living a precarious, stateless existence in Bangladesh, having fled decades of persecution at the hands of Myanmar's Buddhist generals, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR).
Tens of thousands more have left, often in rickety wooden boats, in search of a better life elsewhere. Many have ended up in Malaysia, where more than 14,000 are formally registered as refugees and thousands more work as casual laborers.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has made much of putting human rights at the center of government but who relies on support from the army, said he wanted four-way talks between Thailand, Bangladesh, India and the UNHCR to address the problem.
"We must work out a solution acceptable to all parties but it must be stressed that we will not allow sustained illegal migration that may put our security at risk," he said, adding that the Foreign Ministry had been asked to approach the UNHCR.
His words do not seem to be getting through.
The UNHCR in Bangkok wrote a formal letter a week ago asking for access to a batch of 126 Rohingya in military custody, but is yet to hear a response to its request.
The army has told the government the group in question is no longer in the country.
A spokesman said Foreign Minister Kasit Piromyas was trying to arrange a meeting with UNHCR in Bangkok but was having problems due to his busy schedule.
However, Kasit has a meeting slated for February 2 with UNHCR chief Antonio Guterres in Geneva after this week's Davos World Economic Forum.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Source