<div>Hara Shintaro analyses weakness of the Deep South peace process and suggest ways to move forward productively.&nbsp;</div> <p></p>

<p>While the establishment of MARA Patani and its role in the peace talks with the Thai state is positive, the group never addresses the injustices done to Malay Muslims, said a former Deep South youth activist leader. &nbsp;</p>

<div>The number of terrorism suspects in overcrowded prisons in Thailand is growing, affecting the management and rehabilitation of inmates, an official from a government-funded institute told an international counterterrorism conference Tuesday.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Most of the suspects are believed held in Thailand's insurgency-torn south, where rebels in Muslim-majority provinces bordering Malaysia have launched bomb attacks and shootings since 2004, targeting mostly troops or police but also civilians.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The current prison population is three times larger tha </div>

<div><em>A human rights activist from Thailand’s Deep South speaks about her motivation for co-founding a human rights organization, after her own experience of a family member being harassed. Since the start of 2016, she has been repeatedly harassed by the military due to a report, co-written by her, revealing allegations of torture by the state.&nbsp;</em></div> <p></p>

<p>Rangers in the Deep South visited the family of a local human rights activist one day after he organised a seminar on torture.</p> <p>According to Wartani News, four rangers from a Special Task Force in Itimung Village, Mamong Subdistrict, Sukhirin District of the Deep Southern province of Narathiwat, at 1 am on Wednesday, 2 March 2016 visited the house belonging to the mother of Isama-ae Tae, president of HAP, a civil society human rights group in the region.</p>

<div> <div id=":16t" tabindex="-1">24 February 2016</div> <div id=":15f"> <div id=":15g"> <p align="CENTER"><strong>Harassment</strong><strong>&nbsp;of human rights defender&nbsp;</strong><strong>Anchana Heemmina</strong></p> <p align="JUSTIFY">On 19 February 2016, a group of ten men claiming to be border police officers came to the house of human rights defender Ms&nbsp;<strong>Anchana Heemmina</strong>&nbsp;in the Songkhla province of southern Thailand and questioned and photographed the human rights defender's mother without presenting a warrant.</p> </div></div></div>

<p dir="ltr">Men claiming to be border police officers have visited the home of a Deep South activist who took part in compiling a recent report on the torture of Malay Muslims in the region. &nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://tlhr2014.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/south_threaten/">Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR)</a> reported that at about 5 pm on Friday, 19 February 2016, a group of ten men in green uniforms visited the home of Anchana Heemmina, a local activist in the Duay Jai Group, in Songkhla Province.</p>

<div>Experts have expressed fear at decreased use of the Malay language in the three southernmost province, so-called Patani, at a public forum held by Deep South Watch earlier this month.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Manawawi Mama, a lecturer in the Malay language, Yala Rajaphat University, expressed concern that these days when young people speak, they have a habit of mixing Thai and Malay in their speech. </div>

<p>A religious school in the restive Deep South of Thailand accused of involvement with insurgent groups has closed down after the court ordered the confiscation of the school plot of land despite the authorities’ attempts to convince the school operators to appeal the verdict. &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

<div> <p>A Malaysian news website reports that the Thai state authorities and Deep South insurgent groups are getting closer towards formal peace talks.&nbsp;</p> <p>Malaysiakini on Tuesday, 9 February 2016, reported that the peace negotiations between MARA Patani, an umbrella organisation of insurgent groups in Thailand’s Deep South, and the Thai state have shown progress.</p> </div>

<p>On 11 Feb 16, the spokesperson of the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), Maj. Gen. Banpot Poonpien, revealed that regarding the torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in the Deep South, the security agencies have been well aware of it and have taken precaution to prevent such practice and to avoid any act that would become a problem from a human rights perspective. But even though the environment in the Deep South has changed, some civil society organizations continue to resort to the same old tactic to mobilize their cause without adjusting their roles.</p>

<p dir="ltr">A human rights activist in Thailand’s restive Deep South has denied rumours that he is a member of an insurgent group in the region.</p> <p>Wifa-e Molor, 31, a human rights activist based in the Deep South province of Pattani, on Tuesday, 9 February 2016, spoke to the local <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wartanimap">Wartani News</a>, to reject a rumour that he is a member of an insurgent group affiliated with Abdullayib Dolah, 42, a suspect in the assassination of a Muslim cleric in Pattani. &nbsp;Abdullayib died in custody in mysterious circumstances on 4 December 2015.</p>