Uyghur bombing suspects describe deplorable conditions in Thai military prison — Radio Free Asia

2 Ugyhur men implicated of bombing a Hindu shrine in Bangkok in 2015 have actually never ever been permitted to call relatives, are not permitted time in a prison backyard and are sometimes fed pork in spite of their Muslim faith, they told RFA-affiliated BenarNews today.
Dressed in brown jail uniforms and wearing handcuffs and leg restraints, Uyghurs Adem Karadag and Yusufu Mieraili talked to a BenarNews reporter as they left a scheduling hearing Monday in the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court following their first court appearance in 2 years.
” We are not allowed to make any telephone call in jail,” Karadag and Mieraili informed BenarNews through an interpreter following the three-hour hearing. “Our households have not heard from us or are even mindful of our arrests in 2015.”.
The offenders said they have no books to check out or paper to compose on to correspond.
” Some of the meals include pork despite the fact that we are Muslims,” they stated. “The hardest part is that we are not allowed to step beyond the building and do not get to see the sky.”.
Karadag and Mieraili have actually been housed at the armed forces Lak Si momentary detention center because their arrests within two weeks of the blast that killed 20 people and injured more than 100 at the Erawan Shrine, a popular traveler website, on Aug. 17, 2015. It has been called the most dangerous terror attack in modern Thailand.
A military court started hearing the charges versus them in 2016 before the case was relocated to a Bangkok civilian criminal court in 2019.
Karadag and Mieraili, who determined themselves as Uyghurs from Urumqi in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China, pleaded not guilty before both courts. They might face death sentences if convicted of charges including premeditated killing and possession of dynamites.
Chuchart Kanpai, the legal representative representing Karadag, said the defense and prosecution groups concurred that testimony would begin late this year.
” The prosecution asked for interviews with 424 witnesses,” Chuchart informed BenarNews. “The next questioning of a witness will be on Nov. 1, 2022.”.
Mieraili legal representative Jamroen Panonpakakorn said the defendants will seek to question just five to 10 witnesses. The court scheduled sessions for Nov. 1 and 2, Nov. 22 through 25, and Dec. 6 through 9.
Hold-ups.
For many years, the trial has actually been beset by delays linked to interpreters. An ngo and a legal representative worker assisting the Uyghurs with their defense formerly stated Karadag could not speak Chinese and would choose a Uyghur-speaking translator while Mieraili can communicate in English, however not fluently.
On Monday, the Uyghurs met an interpreter proposed by the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok and signed documents accepting the arrangement. Since of the COVID-19 pandemic, the interpreter was selected in August 2021 but was not able to travel to Thailand till this month.
Chalida Tajaroensuk, director of the Peoples Empowerment Foundation, a Thai NGO, revealed issue about the choice.
” The defendant should have a standard right to choose the interpreter due to the fact that it has an excellent effect on the case and it refers life and death,” Chalida told BenarNews.
” We see that the court does not have an understanding of Uyghur and Chinese politics since the court must not utilize an interpreter from the Chinese government under these political situations. It shows that this process of employing an interpreter is not practical.”.
Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
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