THAILAND:

Academics call for an end to death penalty -- Want focus switched to nabbing 'big fish'


Academics and civic groups yesterday called for the abolition of capital punishment arguing that curing social problems and bringing criminal masterminds to justice would be much more effective.

Speaking at a seminar at Thailand's Journalist Association, Kittisak Pokkati, a law lecturer at Thammasat University, said that capital punishment was a mistake for society.

"Most death row inmates have convictions related to drugs and murder cases. But to simply execute them does not stop the problem recurring," he said.

He urged the Corrections Department to investigate the cases fully and bring the "big fish" to justice since only small-time drug pushers and criminals were normally arrested.

Fewer imprisonments could be expected if the masterminds of such crimes were apprehended, he said.

Director of the Human Rights Commission Protection Office, Sukchai Methavikul, said many studies had shown capital punishment did not help prevent serious crimes.

If the principle was to correct those who did wrong, he said the punishment did not help the process.

"If we still want to correct these people's behaviour, then capital punishment should not be used," said Mr Sukchai.

Since 1935, 323 inmates have been executed after being served with the death penalty, with most of the cases related to murder, rape and drug trafficking. However, fewer prisoners have been executed over the past 5 years.

To minimise the number of executions, there were three ways to go about it _ by amending the law, seeking royal pardons, or reducing the severity of charges.

A Corrections Department officer agreed with the idea, saying it might become possible in the future if the justice system was improved.

Countries where the death penalty had been successfully abolished had done a lot to bring criminal masterminds to justice whereas the Thai police did not usually keep a good database of criminals.

"The Human Rights Commission must also play a bigger role in monitoring the justice system to ensure fairness to the victims," the officer said.

(source: Bangkok Post)

This is where orgs like Amnesty are doing brilliant work and need as much support as we can give. I doubt we'll ever see many of these countries - Malaysia, Thailand, Indo, etc., ever level up to the west (minus the US) on the DP. You battle a culture which resists a lot of change, is comparatively conservative, and balks at outside interference in many cases.

I agree, that these countries will not give up the DP for a long, long time.

I think that Amnesty, as you quite rightly say, are doing great work in letting various regimes know that the world is watching how they treat their prisoners; particularly prisoners of conscience.