<div>After a relatively long absence, a pop music band has made a stunning comeback with a music video mocking the junta. The MV neatly sums up Thailand’s politics during the past week.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>For the sake of a peaceful life, artists in Thailand usually stay away from politics. </div>

<div> <div>About 4,000 illegal migrant children are arbitrarily arrested in Thailand and detained separately from their parents in inhumane conditions without adequate food, healthcare, or space, according to the latest report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). &nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Moreover, migrant children aged nine to 12 are kept in the same cells in detention centres as adult prisoners on various charges. &nbsp;This makes them directly and indirectly vulnerable to violence committed by the adult prisoners. </div></div>

<div>&nbsp;</div> <div>As of 19th June 2014, Human Rights Watch has <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hrw.org%2Fnews%2F2014%2F06%2F19%2Fthailand-fears-crackdown-trigger-exodus&amp;sa=D&amp;sntz=1&amp;usg=AFQjCNFXJJjbE89SQTHOwasPvlNN8Aoc4g">reported</a> several hundred thousand migrant workers from Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos fleeing Thailand. An estimated 220,000 Cambodian workers have returned to the safety of their own country in fear of the Junta’s action against illegal migrant workers. </div>

<p>Since November 2010, the Social Security Office of Thailand has promised social security benefits to migrants holding temporary passports. This promise became policy under the Cabinet Resolution of January 15th 2013.&nbsp; Migrants who persevered through all the steps and all the fees to regularize themselves believed that it would eventually be worth all the effort.&nbsp; They were led to believe that the temporary passport would be their gateway to 300 baht a day wage, access to all seven benefits of social security and to the Workmen’s Compensation Fund. But they have been deceived.</p> <p></p>

<p>On February 25th 2010, in Pak Nam sub-district, Ranong province, soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division fired on a pickup truck carrying 13 undocumented migrant workers from Burma, resulting in the deaths of three migrant children. Those killed were a three or four year old, six or seven year old girl, and a 16-year-old boy. Five others were also injured during the shooting .</p>

<p>The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has strongly criticised the Royal Thai Government (RTG) for its treatment of migrant workers. Just a week after the United Nation&rsquo;s Special Rapportuer on the Human Rights of Migrants publically issued a statement of concern on RTG&rsquo;s migrant worker policies, Thailand&rsquo;s human rights reputation falls into question as it vies for membership of the UN&rsquo;s Human Rights Council.&nbsp;</p>

<p>(Bangkok) - The Thai government should swiftly act to end police abuse and discriminatory laws and policies against migrant workers and their families, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The February deadline for more than a million migrant workers to enter the &quot;nationality verification&quot; process or face immediate deportation creates the risk of further abuses and should be postponed until it can be carried out in a fair manner.</p>

<p>Burmese migrant workers, together with Thai labour activists and unionists, have petitioned the Thai government and the UN to extend the 28 Feb deadline for nationality verification.</p>

<p>On 18 Jan, human rights organizations and activists send a letter to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for concerns over the issue of migrant workers in Thailand, the Burmese in particular, as their permits will expire in January and February, while the nationality verification process has proved to be ineffective and risky for the migrants.</p>

<p>20th Jan 2010 marks the renewal deadline for the first batch of 70, 000 Burmese, Cambodian and Laotian migrants working in Thailand whose work permits will expire on that day. The next date for the expiry of all the other work permits of migrants from Burma, Cambodia and Laos (approximately 930, 000 officially registered persons) is 28th Feb 2010.</p>

<p>GENEVA &ndash; Two independent experts of the UN Human Rights Council -the Special Rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Jorge A. Bustamante- expressed their grave concern at reports that the forcible return of large numbers of Hmong from Thailand to the Lao People&rsquo;s Democratic Republic is on-going despite numerous international protests.&nbsp;</p>

<p>On 3 September 2009, it was reported that a Burmese detainee at KLIA Immigration Detention Centre died on 29 August 2009 due to an unknown illness and six other detainees with similar symptoms were hospitalised at Putrajaya General Hospital[1]. On 25 September 2009, it was reported that six Burmese detainees have died at an undisclosed detention centre allegedly due to Leptospirosis[2]. Leptospirosis is an infectious disease that occurs due to water or food contaminated by animal urine.</p>