Anchana Heemmina (Thai: อัญชนา หีมมิหน๊ะ) is a Thai human rights activist.[1][2][3]
Biography edit
Heemmina has a bachelor's degree in forestry from Kasetsart University and an MA in business administration from Prince of Songkla University.[4]
In 2008, her brother-in-law was arrested and imprisoned for two years on charges of killing state security forces, but was ultimately acquitted by the court in 2010. In 2011, she founded Through Duay Jai, a human rights NGO focused on exposing torture by the Thai government in the South Thailand insurgency.
In January 2016, Through Duay Jai published a report documenting at least 54 cases of torture in the south following the 2014 Thai coup d'état.[5] Following the report, she was subjected to a campaign of harassment by a group of unidentified men in green uniforms claiming to be border police, who showed up to the clothing shop she managed and to her house, where they searched for her and interrogated her mother for several hours.[6] In May 2016, the Thai Internal Security Operations Command filed an official complaint about her, accusing them of defamation.[7] In July, she was ordered to report to police for criminal investigation over the charges.[8] The investigation attracted international attention, with Amnesty International calling it part of "a longstanding pattern of attempts to intimidate human rights defenders" and Human Rights Watch stating that it was "government intimidation, censorship, and retaliation against human rights defenders in southern Thailand."[9][10] In 2017, the charges against her were finally dropped.[11][12]
In 2019, she was the target of an online abuse campaign on social media. In 2020, Facebook banned several of the accounts that had been abusing her and the opposition Future Forward Party published documents revealing that those accounts had been directed by the Thai military.[13]
In July 2020, she called for the Thai military to stop collecting DNA samples during the conscription process, arguing that it was an attempt to create a mass surveillance database of people in the south.[14]
References edit
- ^ "The dark secret of Thailand's child brides". the Guardian. September 1, 2018.
- ^ "Giới vận động nữ ở châu Á 'bị đánh và tống giam'". www.bbc.com.
- ^ "Anchana Heemmina". Front Line Defenders. November 5, 2015.
- ^ "Female human rights activist of the Deep South: Anchana Heemmina". Prachatai English.
- ^ "Allegations of torture against Malay Muslims in Deep South double after coup". Prachatai English.
- ^ "Harassment of human rights defender Anchana Heemmina". Prachatai English.
- ^ "Military files complaint against Deep South rights defenders over torture report". Prachatai English.
- ^ "Thai activists charged over 'military torture' report". July 26, 2016 – via www.bbc.com.
- ^ "Thailand: Defamation Cases Dropped Against Activists". Human Rights Watch. March 7, 2017.
- ^ "Thailand: Amnesty International Thailand's Chair and other activists face jail for exposing torture". Amnesty International. July 26, 2016.
- ^ "Thailand: Decision to withdraw all charges against Ms. Pornpen Khongkachonkiet, Mr. Somchai Homlaor and Ms. Anchana Heemmina". International Federation for Human Rights.
- ^ "NEWS RELEASE: UN Human Rights Office hails decision by Thailand to drop cases against three leading human rights defenders". March 7, 2017.
- ^ Quinley, Caleb (August 17, 2021). "The woman on a mission to expose torture in Thailand's troubled south". the Guardian.
- ^ "Rights groups slam army DNA tests for soldiers". www.bangkokpost.com. 2021-01-20. Retrieved 2021-09-07.