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| The human takraw ball |
If you have been to Thailand then you might have seen a group of men kicking between them a small ball made of rattan. The idea is to keep the ball off the ground without using your hands.
This version of the ball was much larger. A man was put inside the ball.
If you look closely you can see that the inside has many nails sticking through.
This large ball was then kicked around by elephants! (They do NOT do this today!)
After a person has been sentenced to death, he is
transferred to Bang Kwang Central Prison in Nonthaburi Province, just to the
north of Bangkok. This is the only place in Thailand with a Death Row and an
execution chamber. Sentences are not carried out straight away as the inmates
can appeal at two more courts. These are the Court of Appeal and the Supreme
Court. It is quite possible that the courts will commute a death sentence to a
life sentence. If they don’t, the inmate still has one last chance. He can
apply for a King’s Pardon to reduce his sentence to life. The cells on Death
Row measure 4 by 7.5 meters. The walls are 4 meters high. At the top there is a
20cm gap for ventilation. This is blocked by bars. Each cell is built for 18
prisoners, sleeping in two rows. But due to the crackdown on the drug trade,
cells these days have at least 24-25 inmates. They each have a thin mattress
measuring 50-70 cms by 170 cms. Their belongings are kept in bags and hung on
the walls. Each cell has ceiling fans, a TV, and a toilet. Death Row inmates
are let out of their cells at 8 a.m. They have two hours to eat and exercise
before they are locked back in at 10 a.m. They are again let out at noon to
eat, exercise and to bathe. They are locked up again at 2:30 p.m. where they
remain until 8 a.m. the following morning. The lights are kept on all night.
They also have to wear shackles all the time until the time they are executed
or their sentence is commuted to life. A total of 325 inmates have been executed
at Bang Kwang. Most of these were executed by machine gun. The last execution
of this type took place on 11 December 2002. This was then changed to lethal
injection. Four inmates were executed by this method on 12 December 2003. Six
years later, on 24 August 2009, two more inmates were executed. There hasn’t
been any executions since.
Source: correct.go.th and www.thaiprisonlife.com
Peek inside a Thai prison!
