Like father, like daughter: defending human rights

'When I was little, I wasn't very concerned with human rights issues. Partly because I thought I belonged to the middle class and human rights violations happened to ethnic minorities, such as the hill tribes and farmers. I thought: these kinds of problems don't happen to me.'

But that came to an abrupt end for Pratubjit Neelapaijit (30) nine years ago when her father, a renowned human rights lawyer, disappeared without a trace. She was then a senior at Chulalongkorn University. The first year after his disappearance she was deeply unhappy. She did not participate in any activity. Suffering pays respect to my father, she believed, and mourning is the best way to preserve memories of him. After that year, she began to think about her father's case from a political perspective.

'As a political science student, I was trained to think in terms of political motivation. I realized that the perpetrators wanted to silence my father and that they wanted us to live in fear and keep our mouths shut. So I decided to resist.' She accompanied her mother, who has continued to draw attention to her husband's disappearance all these years, to courts, police stations and meetings.

Her graduation thesis was about the administration of justice and conflicts in the Tak Bai incident in 2004 (photo home page). Seven southern protesters were then shot dead by soldiers and 78 suffocated in a truck, in which they were taken to a military camp. No one has ever been tried.

Baen, as she is nicknamed, is now a lecturer at the Institution of Human Rights and Peace Studies at Mahidol University. There's a saying that you can't really understand the meaning of human rights until your rights are violated. I think I now understand its meaning.'

Last year, Baen made her advocacy debut by joining Sombath Somphone & Beyond, a campaign to pressure the Laotian government to investigate the disappearance of Sombath Somphone, community worker and recipient of the Ramon Magsaysay Award. He was last seen in December last year after he opposed the construction of dams in the Mekong. Baen feels emotionally involved in the case because her father, as well as Sombath, was last seen in a car.

What shocks Baen most when it comes to disappearances and kidnappings is the attitude towards the victims. "Thai society still believes that those who are kidnapped are bad people and they get what they deserve." For example, her father was portrayed as a 'defender of thieves'. After all, he had defended southern separatists and alleged drug dealers, who said at Thaksin's was on drugs being falsely accused and/or tortured by the police.

'Most of the victims are also said to be personal problems. For example, Thaksin told the media about my father that he had a fight with my mother and therefore ran away from home.'

Baen says to the families of other victims: 'Don't turn your heart into a murder pit and tell your story. Show the perpetrators that they cannot achieve their goal by silencing us. They can take family members and make them disappear, but they can't make us disappear and die with the victims.”

(Source: Muse, Bangkok Post, September 7, 2013)