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PM admits rights abuses do occur
By SUMETH PANPETCH,Associated Press Writer AP - 17 minutes ago
YALA, Thailand - Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, on his first visit to the country's restive south, said that rights abuses against insurgents do occur but he said anyone committing such acts will be punished.
Abhisit, however, rejected allegations in a report released this week by Amnesty International that Thailand's security forces engage in systematic torture as part of a campaign to defeat Islamic insurgents in the country's southernmost provinces.
Survivors told the human rights group that the most common torture techniques included beatings and having plastic bags placed over their heads until they nearly suffocated, according to a new report released by the London-based group. Others said they were burned with candles, subjected to electric shocks and buried up to their necks in the ground.
Abhisit insisted such abuses would violate the government's policy and would only be providing "propaganda" to the insurgents.
"During security operations, the most important concern is human rights," Abhisit said, after a daylong trip to the south in which he met with local government and religious leaders as well as security officials.
"The Army Commander gas given a clear policy on this," he said. "So if anybody strays from this path, they have to account for their actions and be punished ... I firmly say that Thai government will conduct its security operation in accordance with human rights principles."
Islamic militants in the deep south _ the overwhelmingly Buddhist country's only Muslim-majority area _ have waged a decades-long insurgency.
The insurgents have not announced their goals, but they are believed to be fighting for a separate Islamic state. Muslims in Thailand _ which is 90 percent Buddhist _ say they are treated like second-class citizens.
More than 3,300 people have died since early 2004, when fighting flared after a lull of more than two decades.
Amnesty's report said it had documented the alleged torture of 34 people between March 2007 to May 2008. The group directly interviewed 13 torture survivors while the rest of the accounts came from several witnesses and relatives of victims, four of whom died in detention from their treatment.
Among the most widely publicized cases was that of Yapa Kaseng, a 56-year-old Muslim religious leader, who died in March 2008 after interrogation at an army camp.
A Thai court ruling last month said military personnel were responsible for causing Yapa's fatal injuries by beating. The findings said Yapa, who sustained broken ribs and a ruptured lung, was roughly interrogated three times over two days and was dragged by his ankles because he could not stand up.
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