UPDATE JAN. 28: Doubts emerge over Time report on police harassment
Although anecdotal evidence suggests police harassment of foreigners has been on the decline, a Time magazine contributor isn’t convinced.
In a personal account published online yesterday, Ian Lloyd Neubauer tells of the miserable Christmas Eve he experienced last month at the hands of Bangkok police.
It’s a one-sided tale but seems consistent with reports of systematic harassment during the past few months which burst into the public sphere.
Neubauer writes that he was stopped by police while leaving a rooftop bar on Silom Road at 2am:
“What’s going on?” I asked, identifying myself as a journalist.
He made a menacing fist at me, which convinced me to pipe down.
About 15 minutes later, another police officer produced a bag of white powder, shook it near my face and accused me of buying it. I emphatically denied the claim. Meanwhile, other police officers began helping themselves to drinks from the bar. When the bartender protested, they kicked him in the shins.
…
Over the next four hours we were individually forced to undergo urine tests for drugs, during which a policeman standing guard in the lavatory taunted me by saying, “You cocaine.” Images from popular books and a TV series on the notorious Bangkwang Central Prison penitentiary, the so-called Bangkok Hilton, flashed through my mind.
Read Neubauer’s full story on Time.com.
TOP: File photo of police on Sukhumvit Road. Photo: Sam Sherratt
