Scores of Thai Muslims Killed in Police Custody

The official noted the 78 persons were found dead in addition to the six demonstrators killed after the Thai security forces broke up a protest outside a police station with tear gas and water cannon.

“We found no wound from guns or bullets on their bodies. We found only the wounds from the clash. We can confirm that they all died from suffocation,” the official said.

Some 1 , 000people were detained, according to Thai authorities, and up to 44 injured, including up to 14 Thai army or police.

On April28 , security forces clashed with Muslims in southern Thailand and opened fire killing at least 107 Muslim youth in the bloodiest day in the history of this troubled region.

The Monday clashes erupted after a crowd had gathered at the district police station in Takbai, Narathiwat, to protest against the detention of six men accused by the police of providing weapons to “Islamic militants”.

Police said they fired water cannon and tear gas to disperse the crowd. Some reports also said police used live ammunition.

Weak From Fasting

Thai officials claimed the Muslim protestors, who lost their lives while in police custody, died because their bodies were too weak from fasting.

“The bodies of people who were arrested were weak because of fasting. It caused them to be fatigued and when they came into crowded cars there was no air to breathe,” the official said.

“They came in and the situation was quite tense and very combative so the bodies couldn't take it and they passed away at the hospital mostly.”

He denied that the slain Muslims were killed by the Thai security forces.

“I vehemently deny the possibility that the government people had done something directly that caused the deaths of these people. It will not be true.”

Admitting police custody conditions could be blamed for the high death toll, Thai Army deputy commander Maj-Gen Sinchai Nujsathit told the BBC News Online that “we had more than1 , 300people packed into the six-wheel trucks” for a journey to Pattani province that took five hours.

Muslims Furious

Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra flew into the troubled south late Monday after the protest was swiftly controlled by police and army forces. He praised the security forces for their swift action, but that was before the scary death toll emerged.

“They have done a great job,” he said, referring to security forces. “They (the protesters) really set out to cause trouble so we had to take drastic action against them,” he said.

The action was taken, only later it was revealed how drastic it was though.

It is not clear, however, whether the 84 Muslims killed so far would be the end chapter of this episode or just the start.

“I cannot say what [is] going to happen, but I believe that hell will break out,” a local Muslim leader was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.

Muslim leaders, on their part, accused Thai security forces of again using excessive reactions to the protest by Muslims, last of which was Monday police station protest in Narathiwat province. They further warned it could trigger a spiraling upsurge in violence.

“I am in shock,” Abdulraman Abdulsamad, chairman of the Islamic Council of Narathiwat, told The Associated Press.

“I cannot say what is going to happen, but I believe that hell will break out."

Thailand 's 5 million Muslims resent the state's refusal to recognize their language, culture and Malay ethnicity, and the region is poorer than much of the rest of the country.

Thai authorities have been accused of heavy-handed tactics to quell violence in the deprived south including unwarranted detentions and excessive interrogations.

Most of Thai Muslims live in the five southern provinces bordering Malaysia.

Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat are the only Muslim majority provinces in Thailand.

Muslims in these provinces have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education and business opportunities.

The South was a rich Malay kingdom until it was overrun by the Buddhist kingdom of Siam in the late16 th century when it declared its full independence from its earlier status of semi-independence under the rule of the Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya.

In 1909 , it was annexed by the Kingdom of Siam as part of a treaty negotiated with the British Empire.

Both Yala and Narathiwat were originally part of Pattani, but were split off and became provinces of their own.

There still exists a separatist movement in Pattani that at times erupts in violence like in the late1980 ’s when the Pattani United Liberation Front (PULO) fought against the Thai forces for a separate Muslim South.

http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2004-10/26/article05.shtml