Thai political parties must publicly commit to respect human rights, Amnesty International said today, on the eve of the country’s first national elections in more than three years.

In the latter half of 2009, shortly after one of Thailand’s most notorious political prisoners, Daranee Chanchoengsilpakul, was sentenced to 18 years in prison under Thailand’s draconian lese majeste laws, an experienced human rights advocate contacted Amnesty International’s International Secretariat’s Thai-based researcher, Ben Zawacki. The reason for the correspondence was to try to get to the bottom of why Mr. Zawacki and Amnesty had been almost completely silent on Daranee Chanchoengsilpakul’s incarceration.

Déjà vu is a French term meaning “already seen”.  Refoulement is also French, with a literal meaning of “force back”.  Upon receiving a report on Christmas day that Thai authorities had just forced back 166 refugees to Myanmar, I knew that I had seen this before—on Christmas 2009 in fact.