Buddhist woman burned alive in Muslim south Thailand

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

YALA, Thailand, April 11 (Reuters) - A Buddhist woman was shot and burned alive in Thailand's violence-torn Muslim-majority south on Wednesday, prompting angry protests in front of visiting army chief Sonthi Boonyaratglin.

Watcharaporn Boonmak, 26, was ambushed by gunmen as she rode her motorcycle through a Muslim village in Yala, one of the three southern provinces roiled by three years of separatist insurgency in which more than 2,000 people have been killed.

"She might have been shot in the stomach before they set fire to her and her motorcycle," a Yala police officer, who asked to remain anonymous, told Reuters by telephone.

One of her relatives told Reuters that witnesses at the scene heard Watcharaporn, a garage clerk, screaming and crawling along the road for help but nobody dared respond for fear of reprisals.

Even by the standards of a conflict that has seen well over a dozen civilians beheaded, it was a shocking incident.

"It is the most cruel and brutal thing I've seen in my life," Jaran Kongchuay said as he joined hundreds of Buddhists bearing Watcharaporn's charred body on a hospital stretcher to the provincial hall, demanding action from Sonthi.

"Beheading or burning alive, no one is arrested!" one of their placards read. "Will the government please pay closer attention to the three southern border provinces?" another said.

Sonthi promised help for Watcharaporn's family and vowed to hunt down her killers -- even though arrests and successful prosecutions in the region, where 80 percent of people ethnic Malay Muslims, are extremely rare.

In the same village in December, two male Buddhist teachers were shot dead when their pickup truck only 300 metres (yards) from the village school. Their bodies were also torched.

INCREASINGLY BRUTAL

Army spokesman Colonel Acra Tiproch said the insurgents, who have never made their aims public, had become increasingly brutal towards civilians in response to a police and military campaign to root out militant cells.

One of the main problems for the mainly Buddhist security forces is that they receive little or no assistance from the Muslim population.

Watcharaporn's murder is likely to inflame tensions between Muslims and Buddhists in the region, an independent sultanate until annexed by Bangkok a century ago.

On Monday, Buddhist defence volunteers shot and killed four Muslims -- including two teenage boys -- after an altercation with mourners leaving the funeral of a Muslim village chief who had been blown up in a booby-trapped vehicle earlier in the day.

While regretting the incident, details of which remain murky, army spokesman Acra said the volunteers' actions were justified.

"They were acting in self-defence as the Muslim mourners were hurling stones at the Buddhist villagers," he said.

On Tuesday, security forces arrested 11 Muslim men in a raid on two villages in Yala, seizing five firearms, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and 200 kg (440 lb) of fertiliser thought to be for making bombs, Acra said.

source

Horrible picture here. BURNED BODY, DO NOT CLICK

[almaty 19]

terrible and just wrong....bastards..

[sereia 0]

of course the sick person in me clicked on the photo. sooooooooooo disgusting whats going on there. ugh!!!!!

Edited April 11, 2007 by abdounjen

[doodlebug 3]

I thought I read somewhere that burning women is a Hindu thing?

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I thought I read somewhere that burning women is a Hindu thing?

Women in Afghanistan are committing suicide by burning and I heard about women in India getting burned too. Frightening.

[doodlebug 3]

I thought I read somewhere that burning women is a Hindu thing?

Women in Afghanistan are committing suicide by burning and I heard about women in India getting burned too. Frightening.

What I heard was that a hindu bride is burned if her dowry is not big enough and also that a hindu widow is supposed to burn herself on her husband's grave site.

sick sick sick if it's true!

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

I thought I read somewhere that burning women is a Hindu thing?

Women in Afghanistan are committing suicide by burning and I heard about women in India getting burned too. Frightening.

What I heard was that a hindu bride is burned if her dowry is not big enough and also that a hindu widow is supposed to burn herself on her husband's grave site.

sick sick sick if it's true!

That's harsh.

[almaty 19]

well, whether hindi or muslim or whatever, burning women or men is terrible and there is no sound reasonable explanation for this cruel and inhumane action

[mawilson 2,133]

well, whether hindi or muslim or whatever, burning women or men is terrible and there is no sound reasonable explanation for this cruel and inhumane action

God bless you, almaty. You're too kind.

[Nagishkaw 510]

The photo is utterly, utterly macabre . The act itself was beyond brutal.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

I thought I read somewhere that burning women is a Hindu thing?

No, "kitchen accidents" (common euphemism for dowry-murders) span religious lines, especially in Delhi.

You may be confusing that with sati (burning of widow on her husband's funeral pyre), banned by Lord Bentinck (one of the few conscientious governors from British East India Company)--the ban enforced by his assistant Charles Napier--in the 1830's.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

What I heard was that a hindu bride is burned if her dowry is not big enough

If you read publications such as India Today, you would see that dowry-custom (and its attendant crimes) span religious gaps

and also that a hindu widow is supposed to burn herself on her husband's grave site.

historically, banned by the British in 1830's--and the ban has so far continued to be enforced!

[Robor007 0]

The story and photo are 'turn the stomach' sickening. ####### is wrong with these sick fscks?

[Lizzy 0]

Thats beyond evil.....

[Niels Bohr 72]

Not just Thailand, Cambodia is similar in murderous style.