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Thailand: New report reveals conditions in the most secretive places of detention
A new report by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) provides a glimpse into conditions in Thailand’s immigration detention centers (IDCs), which are among the country’s most secretive places of detention. The FIDH-UCL report also analyzes Thailand’s failure to establish a legal framework and policies on immigration detention that comply with international human rights law and standards.
Bangkok, Paris, 29 October 2024: The 43-page report, titled “Out of sight - Human rights violations in Thailand’s immigration detention centers,” is based on interviews with recently released detainees who reported conditions that were well below relevant national and international minimum standards.
Thailand’s IDCs are characterized by severe overcrowding, which is reflected in the 155% occupancy rate of the immigration detention system. Most interviewed former detainees reported being kept in squalid cells with minimal personal living space. These conditions were compounded by: punishment, abuse, and ill-treatment of detainees; lack of access to basic hygiene supplies, particularly for women; food of poor quality; severely limited availability of adequate healthcare, which in some cases proved fatal; lack of recreational activities; and limited contact with the outside world.
“Foreigners who are detained in Thailand’s immigration detention centers experience conditions that appear to be even worse than those in the country’s prisons. Many occupants of immigration detention centers - including refugees, asylum seekers, and children - should have not been detained in the first place and instead ended up spending years in those facilities without any judicial recourse. Thailand must not only improve conditions in immigration detention centers but also bring its immigration-related laws and practices into line with international standards,” said FIDH Vice-President Fatia Maulidiyanti.
The lack of a national legal framework and protection policies has led to a precarious situation for refugees and asylum seekers, who have been subject to arrest, prosecution, detention in IDCs, and deportation. They have also been denied access to basic rights guaranteed under international human rights law.
For the past several decades, Thai authorities have also violated the internationally recognized principle of non-refoulement on many occasions when it deported refugees and asylum seekers - including Hmong, Uyghurs, Rohingya, and Cambodians - back to their countries of origin where they faced persecution.
The absence of a limit to the period of detention in the context of pending deportation proceedings has allowed for prolonged or indefinite detention, which is considered arbitrary under international law. This situation is made worse by the fact that detainees in IDCs do not have the right to challenge the legality of their detention and/or to a judicial review of the administrative decision concerning their detention. Lastly, there are no legal provisions that prohibit the detention of migrant children.
Initiatives undertaken by Thai authorities in recent years to address some of these shortcomings have fallen short of their objectives. Such initiatives include the establishment of a National Screening Mechanism (NSM) to provide protection to foreign nationals who are facing, or are at risk of, persecution if returned to their countries of origin, and the signature by seven Thai agencies of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to end the detention of migrant children in IDCs.
On a positive note, with the entry into force of the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act in February 2023, Thailand has not only codified the principle of non-refoulment, but also established legal and procedural safeguards against torture, ill-treatment, and enforced disappearance, which are applicable to immigration procedures and the deportation process.
This report makes numerous recommendations to the Thai government, the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT), and United Nations (UN) member states aimed at improving conditions in the IDCs and establishing a robust legal framework that conforms to international human rights law and standards, including for the protection of refugees, asylum seekers, and other migrants in vulnerable situations.