By Mumtaz Saley

17/09/2019

Thailand’s Prime Minister, Paryuth Chan-Ochoa, defended police for requesting information about minority Muslim students from universities around the country. Many human rights activists and members of the government have called the act discriminatory and illegal.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said the police request, which follows a series of bomb blasts in Bangkok in August that were blamed on Muslim suspects, was needed to build a national security database.

Former rights commissioner Angkhana Neelapaijit, shared an official police letter online, that asked a university to supply information about the numbers, place of origin, sect affiliation and other details about Muslim-organised student groups.  Angkhana said that this was an interference to personal rights and discrimination based on religion adding that freedom of religion and the right to privacy were guaranteed by the Thai constitution.

A police source said the request for information on Muslims was linked to the attacks on August 2 that wounded four people when six small bombs and six incendiary devices went off in Bangkok, where a major international meeting was being hosted.

Three people were arrested and 11 other suspects remain at large. All are Muslim Malays from southern Thailand.

Some universities with a large population of Muslim students were disturbed by the letter and have asked for the police to rethink the request.

Ninety percent of Thais are Buddhist, though Muslims are a majority in three large provinces bordering Malaysia.