Thai Muslims Still See Chance of Ending Bloodshed

In between trapping, training and trading in songbirds like other Thais his age, Kawi Phupakapdee kneels toward Mecca and prays five times a day.Phupakapdee, 26, is a Malay Muslim, a community under suspicion in mainly Buddhist Thailand after a year of bloodshed — though he and his friends are hardly the stereotype of extremist Islam so feared by Thai security forces.Despite almost daily attacks on Thai checkpoints and outrage over the recent deaths of 78 Muslims in Thai military custody, outward signs of extremism are strangely absent from daily life in the country’s South, home to nearly 6 million Muslims.But that could change, say local Muslim leaders who worry that young men like Phupakapdee might be driven to violence.”They have treated us badly,” Phupakapdee said, adding he was one of hundreds of Malays held in the Oct. 25 protests in Tak Bai where 85 protesters died, mostly from suffocation after they were packed “like bricks” into army trucks.”The authorities say we follow deviant teachings but we are just ordinary Muslims,” he told Reuters at the Moulana mosque in Tak Bai over the weekend.Phupakapdee claimed he was a curious on-looker at the October protest when Thai soldiers grabbed and assaulted him before loading him onto a truck. Full Story