US highlights Thai coup among top Asian human rights concerns

HONG KONG — The Thai military's overthrow of the country's elected government was among the most significant setbacks to freedoms in South-east Asia last year, the US said in its annual human rights report.

The bloodless coup and declaration of martial law in May 2014 sharply curbed freedoms of speech, assembly and the press, with more than 900 people held without charge, according to the report released yesterday (June 25) in Washington. In a preface, US Secretary of State John Kerry placed Thailand alongside China, Egypt, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia as countries that were stifling the development of civil society.

“The military overthrew a democratically elected government, repealed the constitution, and severely limited civil liberties,” Mr Kerry said. “Subsequent efforts by the military government to rewrite the country's constitution and recast its political intuitions raised concerns about lack of inclusivity in the process.”

The Thai junta seized power from former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra with a promise to bridge political divisions, fight corruption and improve people's well-being. Coup leader-turned-Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said he'll return the country to democracy next year, if there is no dissent and a new constitution is put in place.

Yingluck was retroactively impeached by the junta's legislature and banned from politics for five years for failing to stem losses from a rice subsidy program opponents called a vote-buying scheme. Last month, she pleaded not guilty to negligence charges in a criminal trial that could result in a 10-year prison term. Yingluck's brother and former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was overthrow in a coup in 2006.

TRADE TALKS

The report also highlighted human rights concerns in several of Thailand's South-east Asia neighbours, including Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam. The US cited the peaceful election in Indonesia that elevated Joko Widodo to power as a bright spot for human rights in the region.

Trade between the US and the 10-countries of the Association of South-east Asian Nations totalled US$242 billion (S$325.3 billion) in 2013, ranking the bloc fourth, behind China, Canada and Mexico. Opponents of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership cited the human rights records of South-east Asian countries such as Vietnam as a reason for refusing fast-track negotiating approval for the trade talks, which US President Barack Obama secured from Congress on Wednesday.

The rights report was released four months past a Feb 25 congressional deadline and was published one day after Kerry, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and their Chinese counterparts concluded annual strategic talks in Washington. Republican lawmakers have accused the administration of delaying to smooth the way for the China meetings and avoid derailing nuclear talks with Iran.

ROHINGYA REFUGEES

The US called rights abuses affecting the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar's Rakhine state “a severely troubling counterpoint to the broader trend of progress since” President Thein Sein began instituting reforms in 2011. Authorities made no meaningful efforts to help those displaced by ethnic violence in the area and subjected many to arbitrary detention and torture, it said.

In Malaysia, the report cited “the continued politically motivated prosecution of opposition coalition leader Anwar Ibrahim” as evidence of local restrictions on freedom of expression in the country. Anwar is serving a five-year jail sentence on a sodomy conviction that he says was politically motivated.

Vietnam had yet to assure the due process of citizens, including protections against arbitrary detention, the report said.

Both countries are among the 12 participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks.

Human rights groups praised the report as an objective assessment of the performance of US allies and enemies. The problem, said Mr John Sifton, an advocacy director at Human Rights Watch in Washington, is that the government “too often disregards its findings in formulating US foreign policy”. BLOOMBERG