(Updates with government response) By Ed Cropley BANGKOK, Jan 13 (Reuters) - The Thai army and police routinely torture suspected Muslim insurgents in the far south, using everything from beatings to electric shocks to simulated suffocation, Amnesty International said on Tuesday. At least four people have died as a result of torture in the southernmost, Muslim-majority provinces, where 3,500 people have been killed in a five-year separatist rebellion, the London-based human rights group said in a report. "The insurgents in southern Thailand have engaged in brutal acts but nothing justifies the security forces' reliance on torture," said Donna Guest, Amnesty's deputy Asia director. "Torture is absolutely illegal and, as the situation in southern Thailand proves, alienates the local population," she added. Amnesty said the government and army chiefs in Bangkok had issued frequent directives against torture but the abuse was "sufficiently frequent and widespread that it cannot be dismissed as the work of a few errant subordinates in isolated instances". The foreign ministry said it had only just received the report, but would study it in detail. "If there are any questionable incidents, we will consult with the agencies concerned to look into the issue," deputy spokesman Thani Thongpajkdi said. The report detailed the cases of 34 Muslims detained by police and the army from March 2007 to May 2008 in the region, an independent sultanate until it was annexed by predominantly Buddhist Thailand a century ago. One victim described being buried up to the neck in a pit, while another talked of being made to dunk his face into sewage before having a plastic bag forced over his head. Tensions have always been high in the four southernmost provinces of Yala, Narathiwat, Pattani and Songkhla, where 80 percent of the population are Muslim and have more in common with neighbouring Malaysia, speaking a Malay dialect, not Thai. The explosion of violence in January 2004 with a raid on a military base took security forces completely surprise. Since then, the rubber-rich region has suffered daily bombings, arson attacks or drive-by shootings. More than a dozen victims have been beheaded. No credible group has ever claimed responsibility or stated political demands, although the targeting of symbols of the Thai state -- from teachers and monks to soldiers, police and government buildings -- leads analysts to describe the insurgents' aims as broadly separatist. New Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has pledged to resolve the conflict, although his comments echo those of his four predecessors, none of whom made any headway. Amnesty said Abhisit should close more than 20 unofficial detention centres where abuse has been reported and rescind parts of the martial law that has given blanket immunity to soldiers and police in the region. (Editing by Darren Schuettler)
A Thai-Muslim woman prays during a protest outside the U.S. embassy in Bangkok January 13, 2009 against the U.S. for its support of Israel's attacks on Gaza. Some 300 Thai Muslim ...
