In London a tourist might sink into of the depths of a mock dungeon, might run their hands along a twentieth century model of 'the rack' and wince at the thought of how it might feel to be tortured and killed like the pyromaniac revolutionary Guy Fawkes or hang from a noose in front of a gawping crowd like Dick Turpin, the Gentle Highwayman. The twentieth century saw the aggrandisement of the London villain, the cockney bank robber who's as sexy as he is nasty. The French have the Count of Monte Cristo and the real life storyteller, Papillion, both residents of prison cells and squalor for a number of years; both heroic figures, icons of human strength, ingenuity and resilience. Both claimed they were innocent, set-up.
We regale the story of the Great Train Robbers to our friends, our children; imagine ourselves as dashing as Jesse James, as quixotic as Pancho Villa or as cool as Mr. Nice, the Oxford educated hash smuggler.
Our villains, pirates, vicious gangsters and furtive thieves become heroes of their time. A man that eviscerates prostitutes by nabbing them from the bleak streets of London is redeemed in posterity by dint of his celebrity. The criminals of the present time; the bank robbers, the smugglers, the murderers, revolutionaries and midnight train hijackers, have no such celebrity status. Fascinated by the virtue in vice in the past we are repelled by crimes in the present. We are not in awe of the modern day outlaw; nothing admirable prevails in his actions, no good in his bad. We hardly even question their guilt; just 'lock 'em up, get 'em off the streets'. Speaking to people about some of our own farang criminals having a hard time of it in the Bangkok Hilton it is obvious just how much antipathy and compassion there is for these men and women whose crimes we know little about, but whose guilt we are certain of. "They know the price," or "If they weren't guilty, they wouldn't be there...no smoke without fire," "Do the crime, do the time" and other clichés from people whose convictions are based on unreliable data, namely the police, the judicial system, the news and finally gossip. You actually feel naiive mentioning torture, human rights abuse, malfeasance in the prison system, corruption of justice.
And it is undoubtedly this impassive, not-wanting-to-hear-anything-about-it attitude that prolongs maltreatment of detainees and miscarriages of justice in the prison systems of South East Asia. There are a plethora of jails in and around Thailand where criminals are treated like animals but there is little concern from the outside world, in fact, it's damned near impossible to find out what is going on in these jails and how prisoners are treated (an oxymoron?) Guantanamo Bay exists somewhere on the peripherals of our consciousness but no one knows, or cares, about what happens in many other jails around the world that seem to be just as terrible as the shady Cuban chamber of horrors. As we scream and shout and raise our fists about oil prices, food shortages and global warming, issues that are presently fashionable, that hardly affect most of the self-marketing bourgeoisie doing most of the shouting, there are all manner of tangible horrors happening in jails that are totally overlooked. Set ups, scapegoats, confessions through torture, beatings, rapes, extortion, is de-rigueur in much of the (in)justice system in this part of the world. The man, and woman, inside, behind bars, has a voice but no one is listening, who'd listen to a criminal?
Bang Kwang
Ironically known as the Bangkok Hilton, this well publicised prison is one of the world's most infamous 'rehabilitation facilities'. Built in the 30s to hold 4,000 inmates this maximum security human dump now holds double that. At the moment there are plenty of foreign residents, most of them on drug charges serving utterly outlandish sentences - up to 100 years - for the transport or dealing of illicit drugs. Many of the prisoners - foreign - have had their sentences reduced, some having evaded the death penalty. Thai (no foreigner to date) prisoners do receive the death penalty which is now lethal injection as opposed to the firing squad; this only changed in 2002.
Prisoners are packed into cells with over 20 or more sharing. There's a hole in the corner of the cell to defecate and urinate in, that is after you've clambered over the other cell mates. When you sleep you cannot turn over as you are sandwiched by the people next to you. A light bulb is turned on all night long. Inmates suffer stomach problems and often have diarrhoea or worse. They have no proper sewerage system in Bang Kwang and the excretion of prisoners is stored in concrete vaults which on an annual basis is removed and buried in the prison yard. The stink of faeces is evident all the time.
One inmate told us that river water from the Chao Phrayao is their source of water, if they want clean water they have to buy it from the guards. Instruments to boil water are verboten, except if a bribe is paid. Inmates suffer ill health, loss of hair and teeth due to lack of essential nutrients and vitamins. Often cuts get badly infected -sometimes from leg shackles that have to be worn prior to sentencing or for punishment - if not properly treated.
A recent report stated, "The lack of good quality and quantity of food and water is a cause for many easily transferable diseases, which can be very dangerous, especially in overcrowded prisons. In addition, torture weakens a prisoner and because of the failure to protect inmates from sexual abuse by other inmates or guards, HIV/AIDS is a common disease in many prisons and appears in a much higher rate in prisons than outside."
Amnesty International reports that if inmates become seriously ill at night, no prison official responds to calls for help from fellow prisoners. Some of them die in their cells but the bodies are not removed until the following morning. An inmate wrote in a letter to me that this did indeed happen in his cell earlier this year.
Most foreign inmates admit culpability but that does not stop them fighting for basic human rights. Some inmates maintain they are innocent, and in a country where the justice system, the police and the courts are inveterately unjust, it might not be too far fetched to believe they have been the victim of a set-up or dereliction of justice. Those with plenty of money can live better lives inside Bang Kwang paying bribes for better living conditions, food and other things. Those without money face a sentence fraught with difficulty; many of the African, Burmese and hill tribe prisoners do not receive funds or visitors and were not even represented in court in a language they understood. There are lots of cases of ethnic minorities not leaving Bang Kwang alive.
Thailand has one of the highest prisoner per capita ratios in the world. The repatriation agreement with some countries and Thailand is unfavourable or even non-existent, leaving detainees in a Thai jail far longer than many other nationalities.
Khompong Thom
The Health situation in Cambodian Prisons is dire, prisoners have limited or no access to medical care. Medical staff are often prison guards that cannot treat prisoners adequately. The LICADHO Medical Team, a Cambodian human rights NGO, commented on the appalling standards in Cambodian jails, but also say scant government funding makes anything difficult. The prison authorities are allocated just 1,000 riel a day ($0.25) to meet all the needs of an individual prisoner. Prisoners often rely on family members to bring additional food but due to the remote locations of some prisons and the high costs for families to visit, this is often not possible.
Chhea Veasna, a medical officer at Kompong Thom said, "Inmates are scarred and encrusted with pus from scabies and other infections. All of them have skin disease and many suffer from diarrhoea and malnutrition. Some are also afflicted with malaria. The toilet, in the corner of the cell next to the sleeping area, is a series of plastic cans and buckets. There is no running water. If one person falls ill, the rest do too."
"Prisoners' rice is mixed with stones and they are hungry all the time, but as one guard commented, "people are hungry all over the country". The guards also complain about conditions in Khompong Thom, commenting that the prison is literally crumbling to pieces.
Phonthong
Located at Ban Phonthong, Vientiane, not far from the city centre, stand Phonthong Prison. Each cell in Phonthong is approximately 4 metres x 4 metres and shared by up to six prisoners, sometimes more. In the cell there is a wash trough and a squat toilet. Probationers are locked in the cell until the completion of their investigation, usually twelve months. The Prison Commander uses his discretion regarding the length of time and number of times a prisoner is allowed outside the cell. Paralysis of the knees is not uncommon due to restricted movement and it is not unusual for prisoners to be confined to the cell for periods of not less than one year. One Thai citizen was confined four years to his cell being let out only for a ten minute hair cut, once per month.
Prisoners suffer from malnutrition because the prison food is inadequate. A foreign prisoner from the UK, Michael Newman, recently died as a result of ill health, his body weight dramatically reducing over a few years. Prisoners are often confined to an 8 or 12 kg leg stock where a heavy wooden block is secured to the legs. Some are forced to wear heavy leg chains indefinitely. Amnesty International wrote: prisoners have stated that punishments include beatings, burning, asphyxiation, stretching, genital torture, dental fractures, exposure to heat and cold, solitary confinement, starvation, mind altering drugs, death threats, mock executions, pain, isolation, uncertainty of release and sleep deprivation. Prisoners must also lower to their knees in the squat position whenever addressing a guard. They must always be lower than the guards as a show of submission. Prisoners must beg the guards to go out and re-enter their cell "Kha noy khor keo hong . . ." which is a degrading way of telling the guard that he is the master and the prisoner is the slave.
Food consists mostly of rice (mixed with husk and stones) and pork fat water soup. Newspapers, books, magazines or radios are not permitted inside the prison as they believe it may contribute to political awareness. Prisoners can make fires but are charged for wood, some prisoners have money and some don't. The foreigners usually have some funds and share their fire and food with the local prisoners.
In general, consular access is extremely difficult to obtain in Laos due to administrative processes adopted by the Ministry of Interior (MOI) Department of Police. If there is no country representation, then foreign nationals of that country are denied consular access. Even prisoners who have Embassy representation are not automatically granted consular access. Without consular access, prisoners will suffer needlessly through lack of medical support, legal aid and contact with family who might send food supplies in order for their loved one to survive. French man Dieter Roux spent ten years in Phonthong prison before his Embassy was notified of his imprisonment. Following the release of former Australian detainees, Kerry and Kay Danes, the Australian Ambassador notified the French Embassy and other Embassies of their citizens detained in secret. Mr. Roux had never been charged or sentenced. Kai Lay Ampithinathan of Sri Lanka died in Phonthong in 2000. His crime was not paying a friend's $200 phone bill whom he was visiting while holidaying in Laos. He was denied all access to consular support. He had never been charged or sentenced either.
Crime and Punishment
These are only three prisons from scores in SE Asia where human rights are totally overlooked, where prisoners are often forgotten about, where the frenzied, brutal side of the human character is manifest. It is estimated 1,500 citizens of Burma are held captive - some have been for many years - for having political credos different from the kleptocrats ruling the country. The jails are much like the ones above, with torture, malnutrition, disease and over-crowding. In China juveniles are given hard labour in prison camps. Indonesian prisons are home to many foreigners, some serving life sentences for possession of hashish; conditions again are appalling. Japan, a country whose economy is exuberant compared to some of the aforementioned countries - and so you'd think might have better prison conditions - is reputedly one of the worst countries to be imprisoned. Prisoners can spend months in solitary, one man spent ten months in solitary prior to sentencing, he received fourteen years for ecstasy and cocaine possession, almost double what you'd get for murder in Japan. Another inmate spent two years in solitary after a fight ended with a Japanese man dead. He has always maintained his innocence saying he fought back in self defence when attacked by a large group of men. "Prisoners are often forced to sit 'Buddha' style on the side of their beds all day. Beaten, starved and forgotten by many." Others prisoners said they were tricked into confession, beaten or tortured. One inmate said, "Beatings are handed out by the guards if any of the hundreds of ridiculous rules are broken, e.g. prisoners must sit on the floor in their cell, no standing, walking, sitting or lying on the bed." Another told Amnesty International after his release, "I will never forget what they did to me as long as I live," and went on to describe how prison guards stripped him naked, kicked him hard in the abdomen and sexually assaulted him with a truncheon while he was held in solitary confinement.
Obviously draconian conditions such as the above are not uncommon in other parts of the world and if the country in question is third world or developing world then you cannot expect great living conditions in their jails. But is torture and abuse a consequence of socio-economics? Possibly, possibly not, but it certainly would struggle to exist if there was more transparency and international attention in those places where the abuse happens. Should prisoners be given a fair trial, be adequately legally represented in a language they understand? Should prisoners receive death sentences for peddling serotonin enhancers when people are dropping like flies from legal drugs? The biggest drug dealers in the world are the governments, the pharmaceutical companies and cigarette and alcohol purveyors. Corporate crime is rife all around the world but how many perpetrators end up doing hard time? These people don't go to jail (read today's papers), they are immune to punishment, it's only once in a while a token corporate fiend is sent down. Thailand's jails are not a place for the middle class, the business tycoons, the corrupt politicians or anyone with money for that fact. Punishment here is subject to social position and bribes, again, there are occasional token bourgeois made examples of. It's not always a case of who is good or bad, it's a case of fiddling the books, turning the other cheek or taking the focus away from the men in suits in the background running away with the swag and putting the focus on those multitudes of expendable ya ba dealers and motorcycle gangs who purportedly ruin the country. The question of what is virtue and vice, who are the good guys and bad guys, these metaphysical conundrums have rarely been agreed upon throughout philosophical/political history, we, the hoi polloi, usually just go along with the institution that purports to know the answers. The past was barbaric, the present is supposedly just, well, it's a step up from the medieval 'rack' - which was at least publicly known of; the torture dished out to inmates in Asian jails today remains firmly ensconced behind closed doors. In the future today's laws and punishments and fuzzy justice might well be seen as unethical as we now view Turpin's noose, Fawke's rack or Papillion's fetid dungeon; it's a possibility, but the fact is we'll probably wait until posterity to indict it. Jesus apparently said while labouring with a punishment a la mode in his time, "My yoke is easy, my burden is light." Well, not everybody has that kind of strength, some of us are made of softer stuff.
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