This is a story about a recent incident of police violence in Thailand. For reasons that will become obvious, the persons and places involved cannot be identified. 

It begins with a young man, known here as Prasert. He hangs out with a local gang, has had some run-ins with the law, and has been up on a minor drug charge. 

Not long ago, Prasert and his friends went to a concert in the district town. Some trouble started. Prasert joined a fight, he says, to pull a buddy out. The other side started attacking him, and he ran. As he ran, a policeman called out to stop. When he did not, the officer shot at him three times, hitting him twice. 

The policeman strode over and started kicking Prasert as he lay wounded on the ground. Then Prasert’s friends intervened. The officer, whose breath smelt of alcohol, denied shooting him. Eyewitnesses gathered, insisting that he had, and the policeman backed off. 

The young man’s friends chased after the policeman and caught up with him as he reached a group of his colleagues and security volunteers. They asked the officers for help to call an ambulance. Instead, the police accused one of the victim’s friends of being the shooter, and began assaulting him too. 

Meanwhile, someone called the local hospital and Prasert was sent for treatment. His relatives found him there, in a serious condition but alive. 

The next day the family went to the station, but the police told them to come back the day after because the investigating officer was not present. When they came again to give evidence, they saw the alleged shooter hanging around in the background. 

A lawyer who learned about the case visited the family and listened to the story, then outlined what could be done. She was frank, explaining that police in these types of cases almost never face punishment. She would do as much as she could, but also could not guarantee Prasert’s safety, or that of other family members. 

Both the lawyer and family knew that it was only a matter of time before the police made contact to negotiate a deal. Sure enough, after a week they received a phone call from a senior officer at the station, asking how he could help. The family requested over US$10,000 to pay for the medical expenses and put the matter to rest. He said that he would tell his boss and get back to them. 

The police bargained down to half of what the family asked. A senior officer came to their house and paid in cash. The family moved Prasert to another part of the country, where it will take him about a year to fully recover from his injuries. 

Prasert’s story stops here, but is indicative of the type of routine police violence against ordinary folks that goes on daily all over Thailand, yet receives little attention from the media or human rights groups. 

How come we don’t hear more about cases like this? There are a number of reasons, including the following. 

First, Prasert was the wrong type of victim. He falls into a category of citizens for whom the ordinary rules do not apply, and for whom there is no public sympathy when things go bad. His appearance and background mean that he is presumed guilty of something, for which he deserves whatever he gets. 

Second, there are no means for redress. For all the talk in Thailand about commissions, investigations and trainings, there are no bodies that can effectively investigate, prosecute and punish police officers. To whom can a family like this turn? There are only the police themselves. Even a conscientious lawyer can do no more than suggest they think about taking the money. 

Third, the police are experienced at settling cases quickly, quietly and systematically. The notion of command responsibility in Thailand is not that a senior officer investigates and disciplines his subordinates. It is that he covers up their crimes, represents them in negotiations and defends them against charges of wrongdoing. The system moves fast to protect its own. 

Fourth, there is no effective victim and witness protection. A law and agency set up a few years ago for this purpose have proven useless. The family in this case asked about applying for protection. Officers told them that if they were assigned security it would be from police of the same station as the assailant. Unsurprisingly, they did not bother. 

In Thailand, to cover up police violence does not require some special initiative, effort or intelligence. On the contrary, things are arranged institutionally and socially so that the covering up, like the violence itself, is routine. Even families like Prasert’s, who had some resources and advice, quickly realize that not only is there no point in attempting to bring a story into the public domain, but that the risks far outweigh the possible benefits. 

For this reason, no more can be written of this case. But today, tomorrow and the next week there will be more victims like Prasert. Whether or not any of their stories surface depends largely on the extent to which people in Thailand are ready to challenge the institutional and social arrangements that keep police violence under cover, that keep victims frightened and unwilling to speak up, and that keep those parts of the system that should be acting to prevent abuse inert and ineffectual. 

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(Awzar Thi is the pen name of a member of the Asian Human Rights Commission with over 15 years of experience as an advocate of human rights and the rule of law in Thailand and Burma. His Rule of Lords blog can be read at http://ratchasima.net)