It is Monday morning in Suan Phlu, Bangkok. Its streets as busy as usual -- motorbike taxis rushing by, vendors selling fruit on the corner, a Koel singing its annoying song and someone somewhere cooking fish. The city is full of life. And yet, just a few hundred metres from the air-conditioned cafe in which I am sitting, more than a thousand men, women and even children are deprived of the ability to take part in this life. Seen from the soi's main street, the unassuming complex bears an equally unassuming sign which reads "Immigration Bureau". The building conveys little of the reality behind it.
I have met Ali* and his friends at this small cafe today to visit the notorious Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) in the heart of Bangkok with them. Refugees, asylum seekers and individuals who have otherwise violated Thailand's immigration law are held there, often indefinitely. The prison, and its grim conditions, have caught the attention of many national and international news outlets, and human rights organisations over the years. In May last year, the death of a Pakistani Christian asylum seeker who was denied medical assistance led Human Rights Watch to once again call for an end to indefinite detention.
But just like Bangkok's IDC is emblematic of Thailand's treatment of refugees, the apparent lack of resolve to improve conditions in Suan Phlu parallels the lack of political will to comply with international legal norms on the matter. Thailand has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention which regulates the rights of individuals and the responsibility of the state towards them.
