BANGKOK, (MILLAT/APP/AFP) – Thailand’s army said
Tuesday it would drop a defamation case against three human rights workers who alleged that troops tortured insurgents, a rare climbdown by a military notorious for taking
critics to court.
The charges against Pornpen Khongkachonkiet — the chair of Amnesty
International Thailand — Anchana Heemmina and Somchai Homlaor were widely seen
as seen as an attack on the reporting of alleged army abuses.
The 2016 report, based on interviews with 54 former detainees, described
alleged torture tactics used by soldiers and police across the Muslim-majority
south, which has been blistered by a 13-year conflict.
More than 6,800 people — mostly civilians — have been killed in the
insurgency by Malay Muslim locals against the Thai state, which governs the
region with strict emergency laws.
The trio faced up to seven years in jail for defamation and a separate
charge filed for publishing the report online.
But on Tuesday the army’s southern command spokesman unexpectedly said the
charges would be dropped.
“We didn’t want the three human activists punished,” Colonel Pramote
Prom-in told reporters after meeting the trio in Bangkok, adding the charges
would shortly be withdrawn.
He repeated the army’s denial of any torture and said the military has its
own “measures to punish” abuses.
Pornpen said she and the other activists stood by their report and welcomed
the army’s pledge to “re-establish the relationship” with rights workers in the
south through a committee to report abuse.
The case was closely watched inside a kingdom where the room for rights
campaigners has been severely cramped since a 2014 coup.