15 March 2016•Update: 22 March 2016
By CS Thana
BANGKOK
Rights groups have expressed concerns for the safety of witnesses as one of the largest human trafficking trials in Thai history gets under way.
On Tuesday, 92 people -- including government officials and a military general -- went on trial in Bangkok accused of smuggling ethnic Muslim Rohingya through the country to Malaysia.
Many are also charged with kidnapping and the deaths of dozens of people.
The Rohingya -- an ethnic Muslim minority from Myanmar who say they face religious persecution at home -- have for years utilized smugglers to take them by boat from Bangladesh to Thailand and beyond.
Many of them, however, fall victim to kidnappers, smugglers keeping them in camps until families shelve out ransoms for their imprisoned relatives from back home.
On May 1, 2015, Thai authorities discovered over 30 corpses of Rohingya in one such camp in the jungles of southern Thailand.
A subsequent crackdown on human traffickers led to the arrest of numerous suspects including a Thai general.
Rights groups expressed their concerns as the trial began Tuesday that due to the high profile nature of the defendants witness safety may be at stake.
Sunai Phasuk of Human Rights Watch told Anadolu Agency by phone that witness intimidation in such cases was prevalent.
He expressed concern over statements made by the attorney general that the case may be fast tracked to show that Thailand is leading the fight against human trafficking.
"An attempt to expedite justice and forgo due process to please the reviewers of the TIP [Trafficking in Persons] report would only hurt the [Thai judicial system]," he said.
In 2015, Thailand was lambasted in the yearly TIP for its inability to clamp down on slavery and people smuggling within its borders, remaining in Tier 3 -- the lowest level for a second consecutive year -- alongside North Korea, Yemen and Russia.
