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Here's an important story published by the Bangkok Post:
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Sukhumvit shakedown
Random searches and on-the-spot drug tests on foreigners have left many questioning police integrity
Published: 18/01/2015 at 07:59 AM
Newspaper section: Spectrum
It was about 9pm on a weeknight in March last year, and Mat, an American business consultant, was trying to hail a taxi on Sukhumvit Soi 36 when he was stopped by six policemen on motorcycles.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]76309[/ATTACH]
Who have we got here, then?: Policemen inspect a tourist€™s ID card in Nana. Foreigners say the number of random checks has risen dramatically recently, especially in the Sukhumvit area.
Mat was completely sober, drug-free and dressed like a typical foreigner, in a T-shirt, cargo shorts and flip flops.
€œYou smoke ganja mai?€ one of the officers asked, referring to marijuana, while pressing his index finger and thumb to mimic smoking a joint.
Without asking permission, the officers removed Mat€™s backpack and started rummaging through it. Hands were thrust into his pockets, with the police pulling out his packet of cigarettes and wallet. They found nothing of interest, but the officers were apparently still not satisfied.
€œHumiliation wouldn€™t come until they ordered me to take the piss test. I felt very vulnerable,€ said Mat, who requested anonymity because he still has business interests in Thailand.
The officer took a foil-wrapped packet from his pocket, showed Mat the expiration date, then ripped it open and held out a cup for him to urinate in.
€œYou take out your d**k. You pee-pee tee nee [right here],€ said the officer.
Surrounded by the six policemen, Mat felt he had little choice but to comply with the request, so as diners ate in a nearby restaurant and foot and car traffic passed next to him on the street, he supplied a urine sample. It came back negative and the police walked away.
€œI hailed the next taxi I could, offered [the driver] 300 baht to go to Thon Buri and got the f**k out of there,€ Mat said.
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Financial hit: Two foreigners receive a ticket from police for their riding at Asoke.
POLICING VS TOURISM
Mat€™s tale is far from an isolated one. Late last year, Bangkok expat forums lit up with reports of a dramatic surge in random stop-and-searches targeting foreigners on Sukhumvit Road.
Complaints ranged from police demanding money from foreigners not carrying proper ID to bag and body searches and humiliating urine tests in public.
With the majority of cases taking place around lower Sukhumvit, most of the victims pointed the finger at Thong Lor police station.
Pol Col Chutrakul Yodmadee, a Thong Lor police superintendent, denied there has been any notable increase in searches.
He said €œthere are good and bad foreigners€, and suggested the volume of reports from the Thong Lor area was simply due to the large number of tourists and expats who frequent it.
He said his men are instructed to be on the lookout for drugs at all times, and determining whether or not to stop someone would depend on that person€™s behaviour and whether they appeared intoxicated.
€œWe need to understand that ganja is not illegal in other countries, and so some foreigners use it without thinking that it€™s wrong,€ he said.
Pol Col Chutrakul said he was sceptical about the high number of complaints and suspects the officers involved are either €œfake policemen€ or from another police station.
Many of the reports, however, include stories of foreigners being taken to Thong Lor station and extorted by officers there for tens of thousands of baht.
Since speaking to Spectrum, Pol Col Chutrakul has been transferred out of his position at Thong Lor, shifting to a new post in Ang Thong province last Wednesday. He denied the transfer had anything to do with the media criticism of his officers.
€œWe understand that our job and tourism cannot really go together, so we probably have to lower the intensity of the searches accordingly,€ he said.
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Centre of the controversy: Police take a break outside Thong Lor station. Officers from the station have recently come under scrutiny for their stop-and-search tactics.
€˜IT€™S QUITE MENACING€™
Over the past month, there are signs that the intensity of searches is indeed falling. That decline seems to have coincided with a meeting last month between senior police and James*, a foreign business owner.
James has been living in Thailand for the past 14 years and has been involved in his Sukhumvit restaurant, first as a manager and then as a partner, for the past eight.
In his first decade here, he was never stopped by police. Then, about four years ago, he was on a motorbike riding down a small soi with his friend. When police pulled over the pair, who were both without helmets, James presented his licence, but the policeman wasn€™t interested. Instead he and his friend were ordered to open their bags, which contained expensive camera equipment. €œThey were clearly looking for drugs,€ James said.
When the officers didn€™t find anything, the pair were released without a fine. At the time, James said he thought little of it, marking it down as €œan aberration, a freak occurrence€.
In the past year or so, however, that conclusion has changed €” James has been stopped by police more than 10 times, almost exclusively in areas under the command of Thong Lor police.
€œIt was clearly a question of looking for white guys,€ he said of the random street searches.
€œIt€™s always the same. It€™s quite menacing. It€™s quite aggressive. There is no pretence about law and order; it€™s a shakedown.€
[ATTACH=CONFIG]76312[/ATTACH]
Colourful attraction: Tourists at Soi Cowboy in the Asoke area.
GROWING VOCAL
Frustrated by the number of times he was being searched, James joined the private €œReport Sukhumvit Police unsanctioned searches and harassment€ Facebook group late last year. He watched as the number of members rose from 30 to more than 800 in a matter of days.
€œIt showed a lot of people were concerned,€ he said. €œIt had got to the point where it just wasn€™t fun going out any more.
€œIt definitely felt like an increase, and then this [Facebook] group appeared and it seemed like there was a consensus.€
His motivation for going to the page was echoed by many other members. €œI just wanted to find out what our rights are in that situation, as it was beginning to feel a bit like Nazi Germany,€ he said.
Random searches are hardly a new phenomenon on the streets of Bangkok, with debate over the rights of expats during police stops raging on web forums for years. Part of the problem has always been proving that there was a concerted campaign targeting foreigners.
But James is in no doubt about the recent rise, or who the searches were aimed at.
€œOf course, all of these stories are anecdotal, but there are just so many of them that I find it hard to believe that there€™s any great conspiracy,€ he said, noting that Japanese and Chinese tourists were also a common target for police.
James became a particularly vocal member of the Facebook group, to the point where he was approached by several local news outlets wanting to conduct interviews with him.
Hours after speaking with TNN24, he received a call from one of the producers, asking if he was prepared to meet with senior police to discuss his grievances. At first, James declined, apprehensive over what the meeting might entail. But after receiving encouragement from close friends, he agreed.
Random searches and on-the-spot drug tests on foreigners have left many questioning police integrity
Published: 18/01/2015 at 07:59 AM
Newspaper section: Spectrum
It was about 9pm on a weeknight in March last year, and Mat, an American business consultant, was trying to hail a taxi on Sukhumvit Soi 36 when he was stopped by six policemen on motorcycles.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]76309[/ATTACH]
Who have we got here, then?: Policemen inspect a tourist€™s ID card in Nana. Foreigners say the number of random checks has risen dramatically recently, especially in the Sukhumvit area.
Mat was completely sober, drug-free and dressed like a typical foreigner, in a T-shirt, cargo shorts and flip flops.
€œYou smoke ganja mai?€ one of the officers asked, referring to marijuana, while pressing his index finger and thumb to mimic smoking a joint.
Without asking permission, the officers removed Mat€™s backpack and started rummaging through it. Hands were thrust into his pockets, with the police pulling out his packet of cigarettes and wallet. They found nothing of interest, but the officers were apparently still not satisfied.
€œHumiliation wouldn€™t come until they ordered me to take the piss test. I felt very vulnerable,€ said Mat, who requested anonymity because he still has business interests in Thailand.
The officer took a foil-wrapped packet from his pocket, showed Mat the expiration date, then ripped it open and held out a cup for him to urinate in.
€œYou take out your d**k. You pee-pee tee nee [right here],€ said the officer.
Surrounded by the six policemen, Mat felt he had little choice but to comply with the request, so as diners ate in a nearby restaurant and foot and car traffic passed next to him on the street, he supplied a urine sample. It came back negative and the police walked away.
€œI hailed the next taxi I could, offered [the driver] 300 baht to go to Thon Buri and got the f**k out of there,€ Mat said.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]76314[/ATTACH]
Financial hit: Two foreigners receive a ticket from police for their riding at Asoke.
POLICING VS TOURISM
Mat€™s tale is far from an isolated one. Late last year, Bangkok expat forums lit up with reports of a dramatic surge in random stop-and-searches targeting foreigners on Sukhumvit Road.
Complaints ranged from police demanding money from foreigners not carrying proper ID to bag and body searches and humiliating urine tests in public.
With the majority of cases taking place around lower Sukhumvit, most of the victims pointed the finger at Thong Lor police station.
Pol Col Chutrakul Yodmadee, a Thong Lor police superintendent, denied there has been any notable increase in searches.
He said €œthere are good and bad foreigners€, and suggested the volume of reports from the Thong Lor area was simply due to the large number of tourists and expats who frequent it.
He said his men are instructed to be on the lookout for drugs at all times, and determining whether or not to stop someone would depend on that person€™s behaviour and whether they appeared intoxicated.
€œWe need to understand that ganja is not illegal in other countries, and so some foreigners use it without thinking that it€™s wrong,€ he said.
Pol Col Chutrakul said he was sceptical about the high number of complaints and suspects the officers involved are either €œfake policemen€ or from another police station.
Many of the reports, however, include stories of foreigners being taken to Thong Lor station and extorted by officers there for tens of thousands of baht.
Since speaking to Spectrum, Pol Col Chutrakul has been transferred out of his position at Thong Lor, shifting to a new post in Ang Thong province last Wednesday. He denied the transfer had anything to do with the media criticism of his officers.
€œWe understand that our job and tourism cannot really go together, so we probably have to lower the intensity of the searches accordingly,€ he said.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]76311[/ATTACH]
Centre of the controversy: Police take a break outside Thong Lor station. Officers from the station have recently come under scrutiny for their stop-and-search tactics.
€˜IT€™S QUITE MENACING€™
Over the past month, there are signs that the intensity of searches is indeed falling. That decline seems to have coincided with a meeting last month between senior police and James*, a foreign business owner.
James has been living in Thailand for the past 14 years and has been involved in his Sukhumvit restaurant, first as a manager and then as a partner, for the past eight.
In his first decade here, he was never stopped by police. Then, about four years ago, he was on a motorbike riding down a small soi with his friend. When police pulled over the pair, who were both without helmets, James presented his licence, but the policeman wasn€™t interested. Instead he and his friend were ordered to open their bags, which contained expensive camera equipment. €œThey were clearly looking for drugs,€ James said.
When the officers didn€™t find anything, the pair were released without a fine. At the time, James said he thought little of it, marking it down as €œan aberration, a freak occurrence€.
In the past year or so, however, that conclusion has changed €” James has been stopped by police more than 10 times, almost exclusively in areas under the command of Thong Lor police.
€œIt was clearly a question of looking for white guys,€ he said of the random street searches.
€œIt€™s always the same. It€™s quite menacing. It€™s quite aggressive. There is no pretence about law and order; it€™s a shakedown.€
[ATTACH=CONFIG]76312[/ATTACH]
Colourful attraction: Tourists at Soi Cowboy in the Asoke area.
GROWING VOCAL
Frustrated by the number of times he was being searched, James joined the private €œReport Sukhumvit Police unsanctioned searches and harassment€ Facebook group late last year. He watched as the number of members rose from 30 to more than 800 in a matter of days.
€œIt showed a lot of people were concerned,€ he said. €œIt had got to the point where it just wasn€™t fun going out any more.
€œIt definitely felt like an increase, and then this [Facebook] group appeared and it seemed like there was a consensus.€
His motivation for going to the page was echoed by many other members. €œI just wanted to find out what our rights are in that situation, as it was beginning to feel a bit like Nazi Germany,€ he said.
Random searches are hardly a new phenomenon on the streets of Bangkok, with debate over the rights of expats during police stops raging on web forums for years. Part of the problem has always been proving that there was a concerted campaign targeting foreigners.
But James is in no doubt about the recent rise, or who the searches were aimed at.
€œOf course, all of these stories are anecdotal, but there are just so many of them that I find it hard to believe that there€™s any great conspiracy,€ he said, noting that Japanese and Chinese tourists were also a common target for police.
James became a particularly vocal member of the Facebook group, to the point where he was approached by several local news outlets wanting to conduct interviews with him.
Hours after speaking with TNN24, he received a call from one of the producers, asking if he was prepared to meet with senior police to discuss his grievances. At first, James declined, apprehensive over what the meeting might entail. But after receiving encouragement from close friends, he agreed.
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