Ismaael Teh
Ismaael Teh is a founder and president of Patani Human Rights Organization Network (HAP), which works to promote and protect human rights in the Deep South of Thailand. They work on documentation of torture, giving assistance to help torture victims to have access to justice and remedies, monitoring the practice of military officers and the authorities, the implementation of which is legitimate in a democracy and in accordance to human rights and the Constitution.
After seizing power in a 2014 coup, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has maintained its grip on the country through an array of restrictive laws. The junta’s intolerance of dissenting opinions has resulted in a challenging climate for human rights defenders. Judicial harassment, which remains one of the most common tools to silence HRDs, has intensified, with defamation and other criminal and civil charges being brought against them. There are reports of surveillance of HRDs, both physical and online, intimidation, public smear campaigns and threats. A number of events, including the launching of human rights reports, have been disrupted and public gatherings banned. HRDs also face physical assaults, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings.
