CIA 'secret prison':Violates LaborLaws

[ncr]

A synopsis:

No presence of secret CIA prison in Thailand, PM confirms (http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=4216) - TNA, November 5, 2005

Disbelief at Thai terror centre denial (http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=70593) - AAP, November 5, 2005

US Gov't: No hidden jail in Thailand for al-Qaeda suspects (http://etna.mcot.net/query.php?nid=4201) - TNA, November 4, 2005

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons - Debate Is Growing Within Agency About Legality and Morality of Overseas System Set Up After 9/11 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644_pf.html) - Washington Post, November 2, 2005

NEWSPAPER REPORT: Secret jail report 'untrue' (http://nationmultimedia.com/2005/11/03/national/index.php?news=national_19052119.html) - The Nation, November 3, 2005



Anyone else noticed the following?

What I find funny - the official responses always used present tense, stating that "there is no secret prison on Thai soil".

Well, I'd say I believe that, but then, no one ever claimed that. The sources said the facility was shut down in 2003, after all.

I have the strong impression it's a rhetoric trick used to avoid having to lie. (Or a case of taking the piss, once again.) This way, they completely evade the issue whether there ever was a "black site" in Thailand (and there probably was). Also hard to believe the media did not ask further questions following these insatisfactory statements. Or are these simply translation errors? Someone please elucidate me.

As for the Voice of America transmitter: that Google spot (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=udon%2Bthani&ll=17.668558,103.203678&spn=0.070079,0.111219&t=h&hl=en) found by Admin must be it. 3000 rai equals 5 sq.km, and that's quite exactly the extent of the site pictured.

To conclude this, to me it seems likely there was a secret prison in Thailand, and that it was indeed inside that VOA complex at Ban Dung. Of course I could be wrong. But tell me, isn't that site somewhat fishy - why would a radio transmitter maintained by 12 staff need that much space and be fenced off and guarded like a military installation? I am by no means a supporter of conspiracy theories, but who knows what else has been going on within that suspiciously large compound?

As usual, the beloved PM takes the cake with his remarks:

"The prime minister said the report by the Washington Post, which claimed that the Voice of America (VOA) relay transmitting station in Ban Dung district of the country's northeastern province of Udon Thani was used as holding center for top al-Qaeda suspects, was groundless because the radio station relayed short-wave frequency broadcasts; and therefore, must have several tall antennas, he said."

Now that's an argument! If it has many tall antennas, it cannot be a prison site...... :confused:
......but anyway.

[GWR]

As also featured Frontpage today:
http://www.2bangkok.com

See also:
http://www.2bangkok.com/news05zc.shtml

Tortured in Thailand

Washington - Destroyed CIA videotapes show the water-boarding of two suspected al-Qaeda leaders at secret CIA interrogations in Thailand during 2002, a US congressional hearing has heard.

Thai authorities have long denied the existence of the so-called prison in Thailand - apparently on the narrow interpretation of the description of the facility.

It has long been well known that US agents removed several senior terrorist suspects from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Thailand for initial interrogation.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister at the time of the interrogations, has always denied that there was any CIA "base" or "prison" in Thailand. Foreign sources have told the Bangkok Post that the denials were technically correct.

The interrogations - or torture - of al-Qaeda suspects was carried out at so-called safe houses on a military base in Thailand, the sources said.

The CIA didn't reveal the existence of the tapes, nor their destruction, until 2005.

"It smells like a coverup, but the question is whether it was illegal or not," an anonymous source familiar with the House hearing told the Washington Post newspaper, which carried no details of the so-called prison in Thailand.

"The presence of the tapes in Bangkok and the CIA's communications with the station chief there were described by current and former officials," it said.

Sources in Thailand have confirmed to Bangkokpost.com the following interrogations:

Abu Zubaida, detained on March 28, 2002, was the first Osama bin Laden henchman captured after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. He was wounded in a firefight in Pakistan when he was brought to Thailand, according to well-placed sources. At a warehouse on an airbase, Zubaida received both treatment for wounds - and harsh questioning, including being placed in a cold room with ear-splitting, loud music. According to published reports, Zubaida received the so-called water-boarding interrogation, which simulates drowning. The destroyed videotapes reportedly showed that he begged for mercy and began cooperating with interrogators and two American psychologists who participated in the interrogation after 0.31 seconds of water-boarding.

Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was captured by Pakistani security forces in a gunbattle on Sept 11, 2002, escaped, and was recaptured unhurt in Rawalpindi in 2003. He was flown almost immediately to Thailand. He was the mastermind of many attacks worldwide including the September 11, 2001, airline suicide flights in New York and Washington. He was interrogated shortly after his arrival in Thailand, and within one or two seconds of water-boarding agreed to cooperate. Since then, Khaled has been described as a fount of information on al-Qaeda and its worldwide operations, including in Southeast Asia where he set up the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, another 9/11 planner, was captured in Pakistan in the same Karachi raid as Khaled, in a firefight that took place on the first anniversary of the attacks in the US. He was turned over to Americans, who flew him to Thailand. It is not clear whether his interrogation was videotaped.

No prisoners have been brought to Thailand since 2003, when published reports revealed the use of Thailand for the questionsing, according to reports.

Hambali, the Jemaah Islamiya operations chief captured in Ayutthaya in August of 2003, was whisked out of Thailand for questioning.

According to the Washington Post story, which detailed the destruction of the videotapes, but not their content:

In late 2005, the retiring CIA station chief in Bangkok sent a classified cable to his superiors in Langley asking if he could destroy videotapes recorded at a secret CIA prison in Thailand that in part portrayed intelligence officers using simulated drowning to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda members.

The tapes had been sitting in the station chief's safe, in the US Embassy compound, for nearly three years. Although those involved in the interrogations had pushed for the tapes' destruction in those years and a secret debate about it had twice reached the White House, CIA officials had not acted on those requests. This time was different.

The CIA had a new director and an acting general counsel, neither of whom sought to block the destruction of the tapes, according to agency officials. The station chief was insistent because he was retiring and wanted to resolve the matter before he left, the officials said. And in November 2005, a published report that detailed a secret CIA prison system provoked an international outcry.

Those three circumstances pushed the CIA's then-director of clandestine operations, Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., to act against the earlier advice of at least five senior CIA and White House officials, who had counseled the agency since 2003 that the tapes should be preserved. Rodriguez consulted CIA lawyers and officials, who told him that he had the legal right to order the destruction. In his view, he received their implicit support to do so, according to his attorney, Robert S. Bennett.

The US House Intelligence Committee criticised the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing the harsh interrogation tactics of detainees at secret prisons, notably the one in Thailand. Members heard testimony from the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, in a closed hearing Wednesday.

The committee chairman, Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, said he was convinced the CIA skirted its duties to report to congressional oversight members regarding the tapes and their destruction, according to a story in The Washington Post newspaper.

House member Peter Hoekstra said Rizzo testified that the CIA's head of clandestine services, Jose Rodriquez Jr, acted autonomously when he ordered the tapes destruction in November 2005.

"It appears from what we have seen to date that Rodriguez may not have been following instructions" Hoekstra said.

Rodriquez didn't testify in the hearing, though his lawyer said Rodriquez ordered the destruction of the tapes after CIA lawyers gave their approval, the Post report said. (Compiled by BangkokPost.com)

http://www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=125235

[Yappofloyd]

FURORE OVER CIA DESTRUCTION OF TORTURE VIDEOTAPES - No CIA prisoners brought here since 2003 By POST REPORTERS BKK Post 22/01/08

Destroyed CIA videotapes show the water-boarding of two suspected al-Qaeda leaders at secret CIA interrogations in Thailand during 2002, a US congressional hearing has heard. Thai authorities have long denied the existence of the so-called prison in Thailand - apparently on the narrow interpretation of the description of the facility.

Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister at the time of the interrogations, has always denied that there was any CIA "base" or "prison" in Thailand. Foreign sources have told the Bangkok Post that the denials were technically correct.The interrogations - or torture - of al-Qaeda suspects were carried out at so-called safe houses on a military base in Thailand, the sources said.

The US Central Investigation Agency didn't reveal the existence of the tapes, nor their destruction, until 2005. "It smells like a cover-up, but the question is whether it was illegal or not," an anonymous source familiar with the House hearing told the Washington Post newspaper, which carried no details of the so-called prison in Thailand. "The presence of the tapes in Bangkok and the CIA's communications with the station chief there were described by current and former officials," it said.

Sources in Thailand have confirmed the following interrogations:

- Abu Zubaida, detained on March 28, 2002, was the first Osama bin Laden henchman captured after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US. He was wounded in a firefight in Pakistan when he was brought to Thailand, according to well-placed sources. At a warehouse on an airbase, Zubaida reportedly received both treatment for wounds - and harsh questioning, including being placed in a cold room with ear-splitting, loud music. According to published reports, Zubaida received the so-called water-boarding interrogation, which simulates drowning. The destroyed videotapes reportedly showed that he begged for mercy and began cooperating with interrogators and two American psychologists who participated in the interrogation after 0.31 seconds of water-boarding.

- Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was captured by Pakistani security forces in a gunbattle on Sept 11, 2002, escaped, and was recaptured unhurt in Rawlpindi in 2003. It is believed he was flown almost immediately to Thailand. He was the mastermind of many attacks worldwide including the Sept 11, 2001, airline suicide flights in New York and Washington. He was reportedly interrogated shortly after his arrival in Thailand, and within one or two seconds of water-boarding agreed to cooperate. Since then, Khaled has been described as a fount of information on al-Qaeda and its worldwide operations, including in Southeast Asia where he set up the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines.

- Ramzi bin al-Shibh, another 9/11 planner, was captured in Pakistan in the same Karachi raid as Khaled, in a firefight that took place on the first anniversary of the attacks in the US. He was reportedly turned over to Americans, who flew him to an undisclosed location, possibly Thailand. It is not clear whether his interrogation was videotaped.

No prisoners have been brought to Thailand since 2003, when published reports revealed the use of Thailand for the questioning, according to reports. Hambali, the Jemaah Islamiya operations chief captured in Ayutthaya in August of 2003, was whisked out of Thailand for questioning.

According to the Washington Post story, which detailed the destruction of the video-tapes, but not their content: "In late 2005, the retiring CIA station chief in Bangkok sent a classified cable to his superiors in Langley asking if he could destroy videotapes recorded at a secret CIA prison in Thailand that in part portrayed intelligence officers using simulated drowning to extract information from suspected al-Qaeda members.

"The tapes had been sitting in the station chief's safe, in the US embassy compound, for nearly three years. Although those involved in the interrogations had pushed for the tapes' destruction in those years and a secret debate about it had twice reached the White House, CIA officials had not acted on those requests. This time was different.

"The CIA had a new director and an acting general counsel, neither of whom sought to block the destruction of the tapes, according to agency officials. The station chief was insistent because he was retiring and wanted to resolve the matter before he left, the officials said. And in November 2005, a published report that detailed a secret CIA prison system provoked an international outcry.

"Those three circumstances pushed the CIA's then-director of clandestine operations, Jose A Rodriguez Jr, to act against the earlier advice of at least five senior CIA and White House officials, who had counselled the agency since 2003 that the tapes should be preserved. Mr Rodriguez consulted CIA lawyers and officials, who told him that he had the legal right to order the destruction. In his view, he received their implicit support to do so, according to his attorney, Robert S Bennett."

The US House Intelligence Committee criticised the CIA's destruction of videotapes showing the harsh interrogation tactics of detainees at secret prisons, notably the one in Thailand.Members heard testimony from the CIA's acting general counsel, John Rizzo, in a closed hearing last Wednesday.

The committee chairman, Rep Silvestre Reyes, Democrat-Texas, said he was convinced the CIA skirted its duties to report to congressional oversight members regarding the tapes and their destruction, according to a story in The Washington Post newspaper. House member Peter Hoekstra said Mr Rizzo testified that the CIA's head of clandestine services, Jose Rodriguez Jr, acted autonomously when he ordered the tapes' destruction in November 2005. "It appears from what we have seen to date that Rodriguez may not have been following instructions" Mr Hoekstra said.

Mr Rodriquez did not testify in the hearing, though his lawyer said Mr Rodriquez ordered the destruction of the tapes after CIA lawyers gave their approval, the Post report said.

[GWR]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JA25Ae01.html

Jan 25, 2008
US and Thailand: Allies in torture
By Shawn W Crispin

BANGKOK - Months before the September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington, the US and Thailand established the Counterterrorism Intelligence Center (CTIC), a secretive unit presciently joined the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Thai intelligence officials to gather information about regional terror groups.

Now the unit and its associated staff and directors could one day find themselves on trial for war crimes if recent revelations first reported in the Washington Post and later confirmed during a congressional hearing, that the CIA ran a secret interrogation facility at a Thai military base where at least two terror suspects from Pakistan and Afghanistan were transported and later tortured.

The revelations, made in the context of the CIA's destruction of tapes made of their torture sessions, represent the latest bombshell to explode over the US's prosecution of the so-called "war on terror" and the first to drag in directly a Southeast Asian ally.

Political analysts and diplomats in Thailand suspect that the prison was, and perhaps still is, situated at a military base in the northeastern province of Udon Thani from where the US launched its bombers during the Vietnam War and is currently believed to monitor regional radio communications, including inside China.

Wherever the CIA-run interrogation facilities are situated, the torture of suspects in Thailand apparently represents the latest US violation of the Geneva Conventions and also controversially violates Thai law and sovereignty. The US congressional revelations about the facility also raises hard new questions about the role and possible complicity of Bangkok-based senior US officials, including previous US ambassadors Darryl Johnson and Ralph "Skip" Boyce.

The interrogations captured on the destroyed CIA tapes took place in 2002, during Johnson's term as the top US official in Bangkok; Boyce, recently retired from the foreign service, meanwhile recently admitted to a former Thai legislative aide of having knowledge of the facility but declined to give any details.

US Embassy spokesman Michael Turner told Asia Times Online that as a matter of policy he does not comment on intelligence matters and that the recent revelations about the CIA-run facilities was merely an "old story that has resurfaced".

As one of the US's most trusted regional allies, Thailand was a logical and secure destination for situating the secret interrogation facilities. Although Thailand is conveniently not a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture, it has signed onto the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which broadly protects human rights, including the right to a fair and speedy trial for those charged with crimes.

Although the US ratified the ICCPR in 1992, it has in the intervening years frequently violated the covenant on the twisted and some say spurious legal argument that several of its articles are not "self-executing". With the prosecution of its "war on terror", the US has more recently persuaded several of its regional strategic allies - including Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines - to either ignore or reverse their prior multilateral commitments to rights-protecting international laws and covenants like the ICCPR in exchange for preferential trade and military deals.

Democratic torture
Former prime minister Thaksin Shinwatra's democratically elected government paved the way for the CIA's secret prison's establishment, first by refusing to ratify the previous Democrat Party-led administration's decision to sign onto the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and second by granting a legal exemption and agreement not to extradite any US citizens who violated the Rome statute on Thai soil to an ICC signatory third country.

His government also, apparently on the US's urging, introduced terrorism-related charges into Thai criminal law. In quid pro quo fashion, Washington rewarded Bangkok in 2003 with the bilateral promise to negotiate a free trade agreement and upgraded Thailand to major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, which allows the Thai military to procure, sometimes at friendship prices, sensitive military technologies.

Yet the public revelations about CIA-led torture of terror suspects brought to Thailand cast a harsh new light on that special bilateral relationship and raises even harder questions about Thaksin’s motivations for allowing the US to violate Thai sovereignty. Those questions were first mooted after a CIA-led operation in August 2003 that led to the capture of alleged al-Qaeda operative and Indonesian national Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali, on Thai soil.

Hambali was at the time allegedly immediately extradited from Thailand to an undisclosed third country location without proper legal proceedings - despite the fact that he was arrested on Thai immigration rather than terror charges. In the view of human rights lawyers, the lack of due process makes Thai officials complicit in the CIA's controversial rendition policy, where terror suspects have been apprehended around the world and without trial sent to secret detention facilities, where in many cases they have allegedly been tortured during interrogations.

Thailand has been lured into such practices from the highest echelons of the US government. Former US Homeland security director Tom Ridge, during a presentation in 2004 to foreign journalists in Bangkok, praised Thailand for Hambali's apprehension, but when questioned about whether the commando-style arrest represented a violation of Thai sovereignty, he replied that he was not knowledgeable concerning the relevant Thai laws. President George W Bush in a press conference before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Bangkok months after Hambali's arrest referred to Thai special branch counterterrorism chief General Tritos Ranaridhvichai as "my hero" for his role in the sting operation.

Now the bigger security question for Thailand and the wider region concerns what role the US may be covertly playing in Southern Thailand, where an increasingly violent Muslim insurgency and counteractions by Thai security forces have by some estimates resulted in over 2,800 deaths since December 2004. While Washington is far and away the Thai military's largest supplier and closest foreign trainer, both governments have studiously maintained that the US has played no role whatsoever in counterinsurgency operations in the Thai south.

The recent revelations about the CIA's secret prison on Thai soil have cast new doubts on those assertions, however. So too did a Thai government spokesman's assertion last week that, after years of official and US denials of any foreign involvement in what most security analysts view as a local conflict, al-Qaeda had provided finances to southern Thai Muslim insurgents - a claim that if true could be deployed to garner public support for more overt US involvement in combating the insurgents. (Acting prime minister and former army commander Surayud Chulanont later refuted his spokesman's claim.)

Continued in next post

Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia editor. He may be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.

[GWR]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/JA25Ae01.html

Continued from last post

'Striking' similarities
Still, some observers argue that the US has already left its mark on the conflict, which pits predominantly Buddhist Thai security forces against ethnic Malay Muslim insurgents. Rights advocates monitoring southern Thailand's conflict note a striking similarity between the torture techniques US agents are known to have used against terror suspects held in both Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with those now in practice by Thai security forces against suspected Thai Muslim militants.

According to testimonies of former Thai Muslim detainees recorded by US-based rights advocacy group Human Rights Watch, Thai security officials have recently used torture techniques ranging from sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to extreme temperatures and even the threat to release German Shepherd guard dogs on detainees during interrogations. One Thai Muslim detainee was recently nearly killed after he was left naked in a meat cooler for over 24 hours at a military camp in Pattani province, according to one rights group.

These controversial and often illegal practices are largely being overseen by Thailand's Supreme Command's National Security Center, which is known to have close links with US military officials, according to people familiar with the situation. Despite the public exposure, Thailand's security forces continue to act with impunity while the torture techniques they're known to have used in the recent past continue today, says one of the rights group's researchers.

US and Thai officials will no doubt continue to try to disassociate the CIA's torture prisons with the Thai military's controversial tactics in southern Thailand, including the implementation of what some rights advocates refer to as "US-style" torture techniques. It is telling, they say, that the US has in the main remained silent about their Thai allies' sustained and by now well-documented use of torture while interrogating Muslim militant suspects.

Viewed through a realist lens, that policy posture may be explained by the US's need to maintain cordial ties with Thailand, which until now Washington has used as its regional hub for prosecuting the "war on terror". That would also go to explain why, despite immaterial cuts in bilateral aid and public finger-wagging, the US maintained close bilateral relations and military-to-military ties after the September 2006 military coup which ousted Thaksin's democratically elected government.

But by foisting on its regional allies the worst of the Bush administration's rights abusing excesses - including alleged torture, renditions and running roughshod over international laws - the US's professed claim to promote democracy in the region has never rang more hollow in the wake of the CIA prison revelations. And yet there's considerably more at stake than a mere loss of diplomatic face.

For those who believe that Bush and senior members and foreign envoys of his administration should one day face trial for war crimes for their controversial and many argue illegal prosecution of the US's "war on terror", the CIA's and US Embassy's actions in Thailand should provide yet another disturbing store of evidence for international lawyers and rights advocates to build their case.
Shawn W Crispin is Asia Times Online's Southeast Asia editor. He may be reached at swcrispin@atimes.com.

[GWR]

Tortured Arguments
Harrison George
08 February 2008
Alien Thoughts

Revelations that at least one of the CIA videotapes which are alleged to show the waterboarding of suspected terrorist prisoners were shot in Thailand have led to an official letter of complaint to the US Embassy in Bangkok from the Alien Registration Division of the Department of Labour.

The tape or tapes reportedly showed the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, after his capture in Pakistan in 2002 and his relocation to a secret CIA prison in Eastern Thailand. Abu Zubaydah has variously been described as ‘a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden' by President Bush or ‘al-Qaeda's go-to guy for minor logistics such as travel for wives and children' according to Ron Suskind's book ‘The One Percent Doctrine', based on information reportedly from US intelligence sources. Claims by the FBI's top Al-Qaeda analyst that Abu Zubaydah was ‘insane, certifiable, split personality' have been challenged by others.

The tapes of the waterboarding were reportedly kept at the US Embassy in Bangkok until a request from the CIA station head to destroy them in 2005, which was apparently acted on.

The letter from the Alien Registration Division is reported to ask for the names of the CIA officials who carried out the waterboarding and any other acts of torture. This is with a view to the prosecution of these officials under the Alien Occupations Act.

A spokesperson from the Department of Labour pointed out that torture is an integral component of police and national security work and as such is exclusively reserved for Thais. ‘Foreigners can't expect to come to Thailand and just torture people,' said a Department spokesperson, ‘especially without a work permit. If they want people tortured, they should ask the relevant Thai authorities to do it for them.'

When Prachatai took up the issue with the Special Interrogations Division of the National Police Office, an officer, requesting anonymity since he was not authorized to make official statements, said that there was no need for the CIA to conduct torture on Thai territory. ‘We have fully developed torture facilities in Thailand and can guarantee a first-class service.' He noted that waterboarding has long been part of the Thai security services' repertoire. ‘In fact, we could probably teach the CIA a thing or two,' he added.

Further investigations revealed that a number of government agencies were involved in torture, each with their own methods and practices. There was even some interagency rivalry in the field, with the Metropolitan Police, Provincial Police, Border Patrol Police and Special Branch each having their particular skills and competencies. A similar situation was thought to exist among the armed forces, though some disputed whether the Rangers could be considered to be proper torturers. ‘How can you call it torture when more than one half of their victims just end up dead?' asked one observer.

Torture by the Provincial Police, for example, appears to be organized in a system of ‘centres of torture excellence'. Court testimony, for example, has alleged that Police Lieutenant-Colonel Seubsak Pinsaeng, of Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya Provincial Police Station, headed a team of specialist torturers. Cases where the torture of suspects was needed (other than the bog standard plastic bag over the head) would be referred to Pol Lt-Col Seubsak from police stations all over the province. Ayutthaya Police Station was equipped with the necessary torture paraphernalia and its team were experienced in techniques of torture that left no marks on the prisoner's body, such as packing the victim's genitals in ice before applying electric shocks, so as to leave no burn marks.

Despite two court cases that recorded credible allegations of torture against Pol Lt-Col Seubsak a couple of years back, he is back in business, providing a valued service to all his fellow police officers whose clear-up rates need a bit of a boost.

The armed forces are thought to favour a more democratic approach where virtually every NCO is encouraged to incorporate torture into their normal suppression and intimidation activities. A recent case in Pattani in December last year is typical of such activities, with allegations of beatings, exposure to cold and threats with violence. Such a system, while broadly effective, is thought not to achieve the sophistication of the Provincial Police system.

The most recent exposure of numerous cases of torture by a Border Patrol Police unit has caused concern among the torture community. While most torture is used for what are considered to be legitimate purposes - to extract false confessions, to terrorize minorities, or just to give the lads something to do of a Saturday night - the BPP unit used torture for personal gain. ‘This just isn't on,' commented a well-informed observer. ‘Thailand has an international reputation in torture. This use of torture for self-enrichment just drags the name of torture into the mud.'
.
http://www.prachatai.com/english/news.php?id=516

[FarangBha]

A spokesperson from the Department of Labour pointed out that torture is an integral component of police and national security work and as such is exclusively reserved for Thais. ‘Foreigners can't expect to come to Thailand and just torture people,' said a Department spokesperson, ‘especially without a work permit. If they want people tortured, they should ask the relevant Thai authorities to do it for them.'
... classic, as is the whole article - would have thought it came from NTN!