| Dawn van Niekerk: clarifications [boodskap #35974] |
Wed, 01 November 2000 13:14 |
Marco de Innocentis
Boodskappe: 11
Geregistreer: August 2000
Karma: 0
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Junior Lid |
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In article ,
@home.com wrote:
> Perhaps Amnesty International is not in the business
> of trying to get people in prison with criminal records
> out of prison. I think they are working in the area of
> human rights abuses.
We are not trying to get Dawn out of prison. She herself
has always admitted her guilt and isn't asking anyone to
free her. We are concerned about
1) the fact that women in Lard Yao prison (unlike their male
counterparts) are all required to work, and it's often very
dangerous work with no safety measures. For instance, every
day many of them are exposed to asbestos, which causes lung,
stomach, and bowel cancer. In its annual report for the year
2000, Amnesty International mentions reports of overcrowding
in Lard Yao prison, but not the working conditions. See
http://www.web.amnesty.org/web/ar2000web.nsf/countries/41102 1d35abf4e288
02568f200552975?OpenDocument
"Overcrowding" is also a euphemism: there are over 200 women
pressed together in the same cell, with only one meal of dirty
rice each day. They are given nothing to wash with, except some
washing powder (normally used to wash clothes), which has to be
bought by the guards with the prisoners' own money. Also, medical
conditions inside the prison are appalling: people can die of a
simple infection, unless they can bribe the guards to make them
buy antibiotics at a pharmacy outside the prison.
(NB: Dawn has _never_ complained about her prison conditions.
We know the above from accounts of people who have visited
the prison and others who have served time there and have
been released)
2) Most foreigner prisoners in Thailand have the possibility of
applying for a transfer back to their home country to serve the
remaining time of their sentence there (in Dawn's case, 34 years).
There is a prisoner exchange treaty between SA and Thailand which
is ready for SA to sign, but they still haven't signed it. This is
all that Dawn is asking for: being allowed to serve the rest of her
sentence in a South African prison. I don't know about prison
conditions there, but all she wants is to be closer to her daughter,
who is now 6 years old.
3) Another possibility for any prisoner in Thailand is to apply
for a "Royal Pardon". If they have behaved well in prison, the
King (or someone for him) can decide to pardon them. Unfortunately
for foreign prisoners if their embassy doesn't sponsor the
application, this is not even considered by the Thai authorities.
The SA Embassy in Bangkok refuses to do this, for Dawn or for any
other (black or white) prisoner.
> What is the ethnicity of Dawn van Niekerk? Her name
> sounds like she is a white Afrikaner to me. Do you want
> to imply that the present South African government would
> not help her get out of prison because she is white? That
> is a serious charge, Mr. de Innocentis.
She is a white Afrikaner: as far as I know she's the only white
South African imprisoned in Thailand. I did say "possibly"; it
is indeed strange that Dawn has never received the slightest help
or even a single visit from her embassy. Even Nigerian and Nepalese
prisoners get embassy visits from time to time. However, it may be
that the SA embassy doesn't visit the other prisoners either -
which in my opinion would be an even more serious accusation.
Marco
> If the truth be told, Dawn van Niekerk is probably in
> prison (and probably waiting for a death sentence) because
> of something criminal she did. Western governments
> warn their citizens over and over again against the danger
> of smuggling drugs in the Far East. And there is pretty
> little these western governments can do to help their
> citizens once they are convicted. We had a case here in
> Canada recently where a younger woman was put to
> death in Vietnam accused of taking drugs out of the
> country. Her elderly mother was in prison for a long
> time, but has since been released. I believe they were
> both Canadian landed immigrants.
>
>
--
http://www.thehungersite.com
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