20 years after Tak Bai mass suffocation in southern Thailand, cyclists pedal ‘for oxygen’

Cyclists on Wednesday pedalled “for oxygen” on the same route where about 80 arrested protesters from Tak Bai district of Narathiwat suffocated on military trucks in 2004 as the government avoided questions if it can extend the statute of limitations of the Tak Bai massacre case.
A group of about 60 cyclists including Malaysians prayed for the spirits of the dead victims in front of the Tak Bai police station before leaving on bicycles on a 145-kilometre-long route to the Ingkhayutthaborihan military camp in Nong Chik district of Pattani.
Cyclist Muhammadaladi Dengni said they “pedal on the route for oxygen” to remember the demonstrators who suffocated on the route to Pattani after a crackdown in Tak Bai in October 2004. The symbolic event was organised as the 20-year statute of limitations of the Tak Bai massacre case will expire on Friday, he said.
Police from the Nong Chik station facilitated traffic for the cyclists.
Mr Muhammadaladi said that unless 14 suspects in the case surrender and enter the justice system, the frustration of local people will continue and may lead to future conflicts. Most of the suspects are military officers who handled the demonstration. 
Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission released a statement to urge the government to compensate affected people in the Tak Bai massacre case because the crackdown on the demonstrators severely violated human rights and wrongdoers have yet to be punished.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong sidestepped reporters’ questions about the possibility of the government issuing an executive decree to extend the statute of limitations in the Tak Bai case.
The Tak Bai violence erupted on Oct 25, 2004, when 1,500 local protesters gathered in front of the police station of Narathiwat’s Tak Bai district to raucously demand the release of defence volunteers who had been detained for allegedly handing firearms to insurgents, while reporting it to the authorities as weapons theft.
As the number of demonstrators increased, security authorities decided to disperse the crowd, resulting in seven deaths at the spot and 78 more when over 1,300 protesters were squashed into military trucks bound for the Ingkhayutthaborihan Military Camp in Nong Chik district in Pattani. Suffocation was given as the cause of the many deaths.
The Tak Bai case happened during then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s tenure.