“NOT WORTH IT”
On Oct 25 that year, security forces opened fire on a crowd protesting outside a police station in the town of Tak Bai in Narathiwat province, close to the Malaysian border, killing seven people.
Subsequently, 78 people suffocated after they were arrested and stacked on top of each other in the back of Thai military trucks, face down and with their hands tied behind their backs.
In August, a provincial court accepted a criminal case filed by victims’ families against seven officials, a move Amnesty International called a “crucial first step towards justice”.
But the officials – including a former army commander elected to parliament last year – have avoided appearing in court, preventing the case from progressing.
On Monday, the court is expected to formally dismiss the charges, ending a case that has become synonymous with lack of accountability in a region governed by emergency laws and flooded with army and police units.
No member of the Thai security forces has ever been jailed for extrajudicial killings or torture in the “deep south”, despite years of allegations of abuses across the region.
Parida Tohle, 72, lost her only son Saroj, 26, who was one of those who died in a truck.
Even if suspects are not held accountable, she told AFP, “I would have settled for an apology”.
In 2012, the government of then-prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra paid the families of each of the dead 7.5 million baht (US$220,000) in compensation.
“But, in exchange for my son’s life it was not worth it,” Parida said,
