Relatives of dead victims from red-shirt protest crackdowns seek NHRC findings

BANGKOK, December 27 (TNA) - Eight relatives of people killed in clashes during red-shirt protests in Bangkok in April-May last year met key members of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Tuesday, demanding the panel to quickly report results of its investigation into losses during the protests. Among the complainants, Phayao Akahad who lost her daughter, a volunteer nurse at the Pathum Wanaram Temple in the capital where people took refuge during the political violence, said her group had filed the demand with the National Human Rights Commission last July but to no avail. Phayao claimed that relatives of the dead are mentally hurt and sorry, as insurance firms have refused to pay compensations for their death because they were accused of being terrorists, saying she hopes that the NHRC's long-awaited findings will prove that victims in the political protests had their human rights violated instead. At the meeting, Phayao handed a “New Year gift” to the NHRC chair, Amara Pongsapit a photograph of her daughter and a late red-shirt protest leader, Major General Khattiya Sawasdipol, who were both killed during last year's bloody political violence, to remind the NHRC that several innocent people had been killed. In response, the NHRC chief explained that the investigation of her panel was delayed because it had to be done carefully and comprehensively and it needed accounts of a number of concerned parties, including police, promising, however, that her panel will gradually report findings of its investigation with the first report set in late January 2012. (TNA)