As Thailand marks International Human Rights Day today, a lawyer has claimed conditions have not improved under the junta that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra. Lawyer Somchai Homlaor said there was hardly any difference in terms of human rights violations except for the methods.

"The situation in the deep South is no different today and what Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said did not translate into reality," said Somchai, who recently received an award from the National Human Rights Commission.

"As for press freedom, under Thaksin it was cleverly interfered with, while this military-appointed government also violates press freedom but more directly."

Somchai said the past 12 months had seen the military restoring a hardline policy in the South and abusing the power of martial law to try to ban some villagers from returning home.

Meanwhile, the junta-appointed National Legislative Assembly (NLA) was now busy trying to pass a number of laws such as the Internal Security Bill that would lay the foundation for future human rights abuses.

"They deserve to be criticised," he said in reference to the NLA, which also has among its membership well-known members of civil society such as sociologist Surichai Wangaew and peace advocate Gothom Arya.

"The In-ternal Secu-rity Bill is the most vicious thing that this regime is trying to enact and it will lay the foundation for human rights violations," he said.

Civil society groups are scheduled to symbolically surround Parliament on Wednesday to oppose this bill and others they deem as draconian and anti-democratic. But so far, NLA members like Gothom and Surichai - who also oppose the bill - have refused to resign despite appeals by activists.

Somchai said he was worried about prospects after this month's general election, saying whichever party secured power would probably continue to abuse human rights of its adversaries due to the deep political divide.

"I fear that with continued [political] division, the state will continue to infringe on citizens' rights."

The rights lawyer believes the People Power Party is being unfairly suppressed by the Council for National Security. "But when one compares that to what Thaksin did to his opponents, then it's incomparable," he added.

Somchai also defended his role right after the coup when he and many activists failed to take to the streets to protest. He said he and his colleagues had made it clear they did not approve of the coup but did not visibly protest because there were groups that stood to gain or lose from the putsch.

"Personally, I didn't expect human rights conditions to improve [under the junta] but I expected that towards the end of military rule the situation would get much worse," he added.

"It's fortunate that it didn't deteriorate that far because they decided to put an end to direct military extension of power by promising an election for December 23. We must give credit to General Surayud."