Thailand said yesterday it would drop all charges against 58 Muslims arrested at a deadly protest two years ago in a bid to bring peace to the insurgency-torn south of the country.
The Office of the Attorney General said Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont's post-coup government hoped the decision to drop the disputed charges would promote "national reconciliation."
It followed an apology on Thursday by Surayad for the deaths of 85 Muslims killed when security forces broke up a protest in the southern border town of Tak Bai on Oct. 25, 2004.
Of those killed, 78 were crushed to death when they were loaded horizontally into army trucks.
The Tak Bai massacre was one of the bloodiest incidents in the mainly Muslim provinces of southern Thailand where more than 1,500 people have been killed since the latest insurgency broke out in January 2004.
Critics have blamed deposed premier Thaksin Shinawatra's heavy-handed approach for worsening the bloodshed.
Surayud, who was installed by the military following the bloodless coup on Sept. 19 that ousted Thaksin, has vowed to hold peace talks with militants.
"We came out with this decision after talks with government agencies. They all agreed that national reconciliation could be achieved if we dropped the charges," said Athapol Yaisawang, a spokesman for the attorney general.
The 58 Muslims were arrested for gathering illegally and causing public disturbance at the Tak Bai protest.
The Muslim-majority region on the border of Malaysia was an independent sultanate that mainly Buddhist Thailand annexed in 1902, and separatist unrest has erupted periodically ever since.
Although Surayud has promised to hold talks, the government has admitted it is still uncertain who is behind the three years of unrest.
The almost daily violence has been variously blamed on ethnic Malay separatists, Islamic extremists and criminal gangs.
Late on Thursday, a 48-year-old Muslim man was shot dead by suspected Islamic militants in Narathiwat Province when he walked home from a mosque.
Separately, at least 30 militants burst into two army camps in Narathiwat late Thursday, but no one was injured in the gun fights.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
RSS