BANGKOK, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Thailand has snubbed a request by a U.N. expert to look into the deaths of 85 Muslim protesters at the hands of security forces last month.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said the government had deemed it inappropriate to allow the United Nations to investigate the incident because a government-backed independent panel was already doing the job.
"We are uncomfortable about accommodating (the United Nations). It is not appropriate," he told reporters, The Nation reported Friday.
Philip Alston, a special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions for the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, said in a statement Thursday he was concerned about the deaths in Tak Bai on Oct. 25 and about reports that up to 40 people are still unaccounted for.
On that date, 78 Muslims died of suffocation after being packed into army trucks for transportation to a detention center. Another seven were apparently shot by police during rioting after a demonstration.
Alston had asked to visit Thailand to assess the situation in the southern Muslim provinces.
