PRESS RELEASE
AHRC-PL-35-2005

U.N. representative expresses "great concern" over missing Thai rights lawyer

(Hong Kong, June 3, 2005) The chairman of the U.N. working group on enforced or involuntary disappearances on Thursday expressed "great concern" over missing Thai human rights lawyer Somchai Neelaphaijit and said that the working group had taken up the case with the government of Thailand.

"We have been asked by a source to take on this case and we have agreed to do so", said Stephen Toope, chairman of the working group, with reference to Somchai's case.

"We have informed the Thai government already. We will now enter into continuing dialogue with the Thai government and the source in order to try and facilitate the clarification of the case," he said in Bangkok, where the working group is meeting.

Toope added that the forced disappearance of Somchai was of particular concern to the working group "because Mr Somchai is a human rights defender and we have a particular mandate to address disappearances when they apply to human rights defenders".

He said that the U.N. special representative on human rights defenders was also in contact with the Thai government over the case.

The wife of the abducted lawyer, Angkana Neelaphaijit, submitted a formal complaint to the working group on April 15, expressing disappointment that the Thai authorities have failed to solve the case, despite two prime ministers having been assigned to the matter.

Five police are on trial in connection with Somchai's disappearance in March 2004, but observers are sceptical that the trial will result in any clear answers about his abduction.

"It is believed that senior persons in the government and/or police were behind the forced disappearance and that the five accused… were simply carrying out orders," Angkana said in her complaint to the U.N.

The sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the Asian Legal Resource Centre, assisted in preparation of the submission together with the Bangkok-based Thai Working Group on Human Rights Defenders.

The AHRC welcomed the news that the U.N. working group has formally taken up the case, and called for greater public discussion on the need to address forced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings in Thailand.

The Hong Kong-based regional group and its sister organisation have both stressed the importance of Somchai's disappearance being resolved for the furtherance of an effective human rights regime in Thailand.

The U.N. working group said in a press release issued on Thursday that it was meeting in Bangkok "to reflect the fact that an increasing number of cases of enforced disappearance have recently been submitted to it from the [Asian] region".

It is the first time the working group is meeting in Asia.

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About AHRC The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.