ladyarkles
04-20-2005, 09:35 PM
*I don't know whether this article is surreally funny or terribly sad!*
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Transvestite Prison Welcome In an effort to shed its image as a hell hole for foreign drug smugglers, Thailand's Lad Yao Prison, better known as the “Bangkok Hilton”, has turned on the glitz and glamour.
Transvestite prisoners, wearing pink tutus and tight green t-shirts and a group of acrobats provided a colourful welcome to delegates from a United Nations crime conference in the Thai capital.
Visitors were shown prisoners diligently studying for degrees and expressing their desire to excel once they completed their sentences.
In manicured gardens, male and female inmates put on carefully scripted displays of everything from Thai boxing to tai chi and a 16-piece band screeching its way through some classic jazz.
Prison chiefs proudly showed off the prison’s new facilities, including a 47 million baht (US$1.2m) library and health centre in the women's unit – even though it was paid for by Buddhist religious foundations, not the government.
But they weren’t allowed to see their living quarters, and conversations with Thai or foreign inmates were restricted mere minutes.
It was all a far cry from accounts by former inmates who recall horrific brutality during their enforced stay at Lad Yao and prisoners dying from a lack of medical care.
But not all the delegates all were taken in by the display.
"It's a system designed not to reintegrate people. There's no way you can rehabilitate someone after 30 years. You wife or husband is dead, your children have gone. Your life is over," said Michael Platzer, a former UN official responsible for crime and justice.
Officials at the prison, which also featured in hit Renee Zelleweger movie "Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason," defended Thailand's hardline sentencing of drug convicts, which follows on from a 2003 "war on drugs" in which at least 2,500 people.
Source: World News
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Transvestite Prison Welcome In an effort to shed its image as a hell hole for foreign drug smugglers, Thailand's Lad Yao Prison, better known as the “Bangkok Hilton”, has turned on the glitz and glamour.
Transvestite prisoners, wearing pink tutus and tight green t-shirts and a group of acrobats provided a colourful welcome to delegates from a United Nations crime conference in the Thai capital.
Visitors were shown prisoners diligently studying for degrees and expressing their desire to excel once they completed their sentences.
In manicured gardens, male and female inmates put on carefully scripted displays of everything from Thai boxing to tai chi and a 16-piece band screeching its way through some classic jazz.
Prison chiefs proudly showed off the prison’s new facilities, including a 47 million baht (US$1.2m) library and health centre in the women's unit – even though it was paid for by Buddhist religious foundations, not the government.
But they weren’t allowed to see their living quarters, and conversations with Thai or foreign inmates were restricted mere minutes.
It was all a far cry from accounts by former inmates who recall horrific brutality during their enforced stay at Lad Yao and prisoners dying from a lack of medical care.
But not all the delegates all were taken in by the display.
"It's a system designed not to reintegrate people. There's no way you can rehabilitate someone after 30 years. You wife or husband is dead, your children have gone. Your life is over," said Michael Platzer, a former UN official responsible for crime and justice.
Officials at the prison, which also featured in hit Renee Zelleweger movie "Bridget Jones: the Edge of Reason," defended Thailand's hardline sentencing of drug convicts, which follows on from a 2003 "war on drugs" in which at least 2,500 people.
Source: World News