Angkhana Neelapaichit

Angkhana Neelapaichit aims to end torture, arbitrary detention, forced disappearance and impunity in Thailand, where an effective law addressing these issues does not yet exist. In 2006 she founded Working Group on Justice for Peace (WGJP) to both respond to individual incidents of forced disappearance and state brutality, and to push for systematic reforms and government accountability. WGJP is involved in writing new constitutional articles, defending court cases, communicating with government officials, and forging alliances with other human rights organizations. 

Angkhana is working to eliminate the practice of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Thailand. According to the 1998 International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Forced Disappearance, forced disappearance is the deprivation of a person’s liberty, in whatever form or for whatever reason, brought about by agents of the state or by persons acting with the authorization or support of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. The practice of state-sanctioned disappearance has been common in Thailand, especially during times of martial law. In 2004, Angkhana’s husband—a prominent human rights lawyer— suddenly disappeared. Since then, Angkhana has worked on multiple levels to socialize, legalize, and implement standards that will right these wrongs and bring an end to impunity in Thailand.
A victim turned human rights advocate herself, Angkhana is using her life experiences to encourage the families of victims to rise up, speak out, testify, and work at all levels of society. She first responds to individual cases, communities, and issues as they arise—a grassroots approach that has gained her trust and respect at both the local and national level. She then addresses systematic legal reforms to recognize and protect against enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions: Writing new constitutional articles and laws, defending cases in court, critiquing systems, and using publicity as a key tool for awareness-raising. Most importantly, she organizes families and friends of victims as well as human rights institutions in a quest for justice for all those oppressed, deprived of their freedom, and their right to information as part of her effort to bring lasting peace to Thailand.

The September 19, 2006 military coup abruptly ended the government of Pol. Lt. Col. Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra, a civilian autocrat who respected neither human rights nor democratic principles. The army abrogated the 1997 Constitution, abolished a superior court, banned political assemblies, restricted movement, and authorized censorship. In many respects, the thinking of the ruling elite in Thailand continues to be deeply feudal and contrary to the principles of modern governance and justice. Despite appearances of democracy and respect for human rights, the elite and its values predominate. It is still expected that a general should escape punishment for mass killings; a political leader should be permitted to publicly threaten persons who question his authority; a senior police officer would endorse torture; or a villager be killed for being an alleged drug dealer. Any hope of the rule of law being established is seriously thwarted every time the army and police are given unregulated authority. While the 1997 Constitution overhauled the management of criminal justice in Thailand and established the rule of law as a part of the supreme law, many ancient authoritarian practices and thinking are still very much in place. 
The widespread use of torture is intimately connected to other serious violations of human rights in Thailand, notably extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances. The number of extrajudicial and targeted killings in the country has risen alarmingly in recent years including the widespread killings of alleged drug traffickers, targeted killings and forced disappearances of human rights defenders and environmental activists, and mass killings and deaths in custody in the troubled south of the country. The perpetrators of these acts are rarely subjected to criminal prosecution. Where emergency regulations and martial law have superseded ordinary criminal law—such as the recent 2006 emergency decree over the southern Thai provinces—the police and military are free to arrange and commit atrocities with impunity. Among these abuses are an unknown number—believed to be in the hundreds—of forced disappearances which have occurred in the south during recent times, in addition to many more across the country as a whole. 
Forced disappearances involve methodical and sometimes extreme violence. They combine raw brutality with detailed premeditation: The use of informants; making of lists; allocating of personnel, vehicles, weapons and premises; falsifying of records; disposing of remains, and making or modifying laws to protect the perpetrators. A forced disappearance incurs other forms of gross human rights abuse, including torture, incommunicado detention, and arbitrary extrajudicial killing. These abuses occur where institutions to protect the rule of law are perverted, destroyed or ignored. Yet, they are not limited to the practice of forced disappearances alone: Over time it becomes the standard way of reacting to any suggestion of wrongdoing. This kind of thinking impedes the possibility of any solution to any social problem. Ironically, violence by the institutions of government breeds enemies of the state, and thus, a cycle of violence.
Above all, these abuses entrench a system of impunity whereby the possibilities of redress for the victims are nonexistent and the consequences are felt in myriad ways by victims and their relatives. Among them, the families of the disappeared struggle not only with psychological and emotional burdens but also with unsympathetic state agencies, and day-to-day practical problems that arise from having a son, father, uncle, or brother abducted. As there is no simple and non-threatening established procedure to lodge a complaint over a disappeared person, most victims are in the eyes of the administration still alive and accessible. There is no where to begin and no where to go.
No domestic law exists to effectively address the use of torture, arbitrary detentions, and extrajudicial killings. Thailand has not ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Thailand has become a party to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 reservations and has been legally bound by it since 29 January 1997, yet the current reality reflects a lack of effective remedies available to victims of human rights violations by the Covenant. No independent agency exists to investigate complaints of grave human rights violations by the police or other state agents. Limited arrangements exist to compensate victims and protect witnesses, and compensation is viewed by authorities mainly as a corrupt tool to keep victims from complaining or seeking justice. Additionally, it is extremely difficult to take steps to protect the victims and prosecute the perpetrators as the former are usually held in the custody of the latter for extended periods. The broader Thai public, from fear of insurgency and a growing drug problem, tolerate the occurrences of extrajudicial violations.

Revealing and reforming the government’s role in past and ongoing enforced disappearances is an enormous challenge, but with the help of her husband—a human rights lawyer—Angkhana is taking a comprehensive approach to reduce state-sanctioned human rights violations. Angkhana’s strategy includes facilitating cooperation between local and international agencies, raising public awareness, bringing cases to courts, altering the judicial system to legally and constitutionally recognize the victims of enforced disappearances, and strengthening the rule of law within the judicial system to ensure fair trials and reform behavior of police and other state agents in Thailand. 
With the help of her organization, WGJP, Angkhana begins by documenting cases of abuse and highlighting the dysfunction of the current system. The human rights movement in Thailand, despite its many actors, has not been able to clearly identify and explain the reality of enforced disappearances and the role played by the authorities, because it has yet to perform the necessary extensive groundwork of documentation on the tortures, killings, abductions and other kinds of violence that are committed daily against ordinary persons throughout the country. Through the WGJP, Angkhana documents cases of abuse and explicitly traces them to existing justice institutions—whether local police stations, or national judicial courts. An initial database of the missing—which includes information on missing individuals, testimonies from families, and petitions—serves to highlight the failures and complicity of the current justice system, and has been submitted to both the government and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Angkhana’s success also comes from her ability to link local work with families of victims with national-level policy and advocacy work. As an essential stepping stone, Angkhana listens to the human rights issues that people are dealing with in their daily lives. She works constantly with victims and their families, whose trust she holds because of her own experience, and carefully records each of their cases. Concurrently, she organizes meetings directly with government officials, from the prime minister down to the local authorities. This ability to tap into the top levels of administration and press the concerns of victims, which until recently were beyond the realm of public discussion in Thailand, is the result of her experience and entrepreneurial work over the last three years. The simple fact that she meets with top public officials—and that they acknowledge the issue of enforced disappearances—is a monumental step forward. She is currently working with the director of the Central Investigation Forensic Science and the National Human Rights Commission to perform post-mortems and perform DNA analysis of unidentified bodies that could match those of the missing victims. As a member of the Constitution Drafting Committee (a highly influential policy level position), the Legal Council of Thailand, the Thai Working Group on Human Rights Defenders, and the Campaign for Human Rights, Angkhana is able to reach all levels of society.  The upcoming new Constitution will include a new article verifying the international conventions Thailand has ratified and signed so that citizens can take action in any new case of abuse.
Angkhana is keenly aware of the importance of international and regional attention to support her movement and apply pressure on the government. Among others, she works closely with Non-Violence International, Human Rights First, the World Organization Against Torture, and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Thailand is among the few countries that has yet to ratify the Convention against Torture or the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Angkhana leverages the support from international agencies to pressure Thailand to adopt these conventions. Until it does, law enforcement officers in Thailand will feel free to engage in torture and related abuses—particularly under times of martial law. However, if enacted, the new laws could be retroactive, applying not only to the disappearance of human rights defenders like Somchai Neelapaichit (Ankhana’s husband), but also the hundreds of others reported to have been forcibly disappeared, detained, or tortured throughout Thailand.
Angkhana uses media and publicity to spread awareness of this issue, but also as a form of protection. Living constantly under threat and very aware of the consequences human rights defenders have suffered from such threats, she draws as much attention to herself and her work as possible—making any organized attempt to make her disappear that much more difficult. As a result, she has attracted support from numerous quarters and has been insulated from the most serious risks, thereby setting a strong example of witness protection. At the same time, she is aware of the inherent dangers of her work, and tries to keep the work of her colleagues and associates as confidential as possible. The rather innocuous title of her organization itself, Working Group on Justice for Peace, allows its members to work on very difficult issues without inviting undue scrutiny from the authorities by explicit reference to forced disappearances.

Angkhana’s husband, Somchai Neelaphaichit, mysteriously disappeared on March 12, 2004, attracting immense national and international attention. Angkhana began working to find answers and justice. In the course of her personal struggle, she has received death threats and intimidation as well as attempts to buy her off; she has become well versed in the field of human rights and established an organization to fight against disappearances in Thailand. On the second anniversary of her husband’s abduction, both her struggle and his were acknowledged when he was awarded the 2nd Asian Human Rights Defender Award from the Asia Human Rights Commission. Angkhana has also received an award from the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand and is a 2006 joint recipient of the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights.
Angkhana was born in 1956 in Thonburi province to a Muslim-Buddhist Thai family. Despite her family’s low economic situation, her parents placed a high value on education and sent their children to good primary and secondary schools, leading Angkhana to receive a scholarship from Mahidol University to study Nursing and receive a degree. During October of her freshman year, Angkhana witnessed the bloody October 6, 1976 events whereby Thai uniformed police crushed the student movement in Thailand, causing the death of numerous students and triggering the flight of many students into the jungle—students whose commitment and strength have continuously inspired her. She mobilized other nursing students to offer medical care to the injured. During her second year, Angkhana organized her fellow students in a successful campaign to demand that Mahidol University grant a bachelor’s degree for Nursing graduates rather than a certificate. This recognized the rigor of the course, the commitment of the students, and the value of the nursing profession in Thailand. She was among the first students to receive a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing in Thai history.
She practiced nursing for only two years, enough time to be exposed to the difficulties the poor face in accessing health care, before deciding to raise her five children and support her husband’s work. Acting as Somchai’s paralegal, Angkhana managed case files and briefs, organized and cajoled pro bono lawyers while starting a business to put food on the table. Since the day Somchai disappeared, Angkhana decided she would not play the role of victim. Her work is not about Somchai and his case; it is about smashing through a system of impunity and achieving justice for all of Thailand’s citizens.