Members of Amnesty International gathered outside Bangkok’s Bang Kwang Central Prison yesterday to voice their disapproval of Thailand’s first execution in nine years. That disapproval was echoed by numerous rights groups — considerably less so from the general public.
The execution was carried out Monday afternoon, as 26-year-old Theerasak Longji was put to death by lethal injection for the robbery-murder of a 17-year-old boy, who Theerasak brutally stabbed 24 times.
Among the roughly dozen Amnesty members at the protest, signs could be seen reading “Execute Justice Not People” and “The death penalty does not decrease crime rates.”
“The death penalty doesn’t solve crimes. It is a violation of the right to live. We do not want to see heinous crimes in Thailand, however, we should not use violence as a solution,” a Thai representative of the group told reporters.
Thailand was just one year short of reaching an important milestone. According to Amnesty International’s guidelines, reaching the 10-year point with no executions marks the abolition of the death penalty “in practice.” But that wasn’t to be.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), meanwhile, voiced concern that the execution was carried out without prior notice. In a public statement, OHCHR said that transparency regarding the death penalty is in the public interest and that information about its application should be readily available for every and any citizen.
“We urge the Royal Thai Government to take steps to immediately instate a moratorium on the use of the death penalty as part of a process toward the full abolishment of capital punishment” said Cynthia Veliko, a representative of OHCHR.
Kingsley Abbott, a senior legal adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, tweeted that the execution “flies in the face of Thailand’s repeated commitments on the international stage to work towards abolition.”
#Thailand has reportedly just executed a man for murder; its first execution since 2009.
If confirmed, this act, which is never justifiable, flies in the face of Thailand's repeated commitments on the intl. stage to work towards abolition | @ICJ_orghttps://t.co/U8PRd01rW4 pic.twitter.com/QR2DoEynGj
— Kingsley Abbott (@AbbottKingsley) June 18, 2018
The reaction of many Thai netizens, however, stood in stark contract to that of rights groups, as comments disagreeing with the prison-front protest flooded Amnesty International Thailand’s Facebook page.
“You advocate for a convict who stabbed the victim 24 times. Have you thought about what he was thinking when the he stabbed the victim? The first, second, third stab — what was going through his head? Do you have a proven successful solution?” said a comment that has received more than 500 likes.
A quick scan of Twitter — where the hashtag #deathpenalty was Twitter’s top trending topic yesterday — showed fairly widescale support for the decision to bring back death penalty.
And few were using facts to argue that the death penalty is an effective deterrent. Rather, most seemed to see capital punishment as simply a sensible way to remove a proven threat from the public. Or, as with the tweet below, a justifiable form of vengeance.
https://twitter.com/iriskhs/status/1008999489544155137
“The Thai laws already consider the violators’ rights and often give them a second chance — too many chances, in fact. When a crime is too hideous and any sort of opportunities to redeem themselves have gone to waste, they should be punished by the full extent of the laws.”
เรามองว่ากม.ไทย มีข้อพิจารณารองรับการให้โอกาสคนผิดอยู่แล้วนะ มีเยอะเกินไปด้วยซ้ำบางที ซึ่งเมื่อการกระทำผิดมันเกินเยียวยาและไม่เคยใช้โอกาสให้เป็นประโยชน์ ก็ควรบังคับใช้เด็ดขาดตามกม.อะ #ประหารชีวิต
— yd.cc (@onex_cc) June 19, 2018
Meanwhile, E-jeab Liab Duan, an anonymous internet personality who offers his own take on news stories of the day, defended the death penalty’s surprise reintroduction to his 2.5 million Facebook followers.
“I’m very okay with the first execution in almost 10 years — just like all of you, the majority of people in this country,” reads post yesterday, which has gained nearly 70,000 likes.
“I don’t want the death penalty to be carried out just for the sake of the public’s satisfaction — just the heinous cases where the convicts had repeatedly committed crimes, the cases with solid proof.
“For the sake of those human rights folks, I won’t say I agree with death penalty. I’ll just say I don’t disagree, and thanks to Department of Corrections for bringing it back, okay?”
The online outpouring of pro-death penalty sentiment is far from new in the decade of social media — movements for the government to bring back death penalty often follow the news of horrific crimes such as the rape and murder of children.
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Despite social media outcry, Prayuth says no death penalty for rapists
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