More Thai Muslims flee to Malaysia

A third group of Thai Muslims crossed into neighboring Malaysia, complaining of harassment by the military in Thailand’s Muslim south.

The group, which consists of seven men and 17 women aged between one and 57, said they had been beaten by Thai forces and that their sons were either missing or detained, according to the Malaysian Star newspaper.

The Thai government, which was installed after a bloodless coup in September, says that it is working on a policy of reconciliation to restore peace in the Muslim south, where more than 2,000 people have killed in three years of violence.

But recent attacks in the southern provinces have prompted Thai authorities to tighten security measures.

A spokesman for the Thai group, which arrived in Malaysia on Saturday, told the Star newspaper that a bomb attack on a mosque in his village had made it difficult for Muslims to gather to pray.

"Last week after the bomb blast, which injured scores of my neighbors, Thai soldiers came and simply arrested youths," he said, adding that many young men were missing or feared dead.

The group says that it is not seeking political asylum but wants the Malaysian government to stop the violence against Muslims in the four Thai southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani and Songkhla.

Malaysia’s immigration department officials could not be reached for comment, and an official of the UN refugee agency in Kuala Lumpur said it had no information on the case.

The escape of the Thai Muslim group follows the flight of 131 Muslim asylum seekers from southern Thailand in 2005, who are still being held in a Malaysian immigration depot, and an incident last December in which a second group of 20 Thai Muslims crossed into Malaysia.

Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled last year, has been accused of applying heavy-handed policies against Muslims in the south.

Last November, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont vowed to bring about national reconciliation, and apologized for Thaksin’s tough policies which were blamed for stoking unrest in the south.

Coup leader Sonthi Boonyaratglin, the first Muslim to lead the Thai military, said that the apology showed the government’s willingness to resolve the conflict in the south.

However, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said the apology should be followed by the arrest of guilty officers involved in the death of innocent Muslims.

Malaysia is a mainly Muslim country, while Thailand is predominantly Buddhist. Relations between the two neighbors had been strained over the violence in Thailand's largely Muslim far south.

Thailand's three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat were all an independent Muslim sultanate before being annexed a century ago.

-- AJP and Agencies