"We have to wait for more clear information on how many schools were involved," said Chavalit

BANGKOK , July 27 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Thailand threatened on Tuesday, July 27, to shut down some Islamic boarding schools in the Muslim-majority south, claiming they are used as training camps for separatist fighters.

The Thai government has alleged that teachers were involved in unrest this year that has left more than 250 people dead from attacks on Thai Buddhists, security officials and civil servants, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

It has further claimed that armed groups used schools as bases to launch attacks that have continued unabated since January.

Twenty-one schools are under threat in total, all of them in the three worst hit provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat, according to the Nation newspaper.

It said their owners could be jailed if they did not help rooting out "militant movements" in the schools.

Cutting Funds

Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, a deputy prime minister, confirmed Tuesday the government was considering cutting funding to some Islamic schools in a country that is overwhelmingly Buddhist, but declined to say how many.

"We have to wait for more clear information on how many schools were involved and the Education Ministry will consider shutting down these schools," he told reporters before the weekly cabinet meeting.

"If they had committed any damage to authority or security they must be prosecuted but the procedure must be very prudent."

Thailand 's 5 million Muslims resent the state's refusal to recognize their language, culture and Malay ethnicity, and the region is poorer than much of the rest of the country.

Despite the violence that has plagued the region, most Thai Muslims lead peaceful and pious lives, fishing, farming and trading.

Fighting sputtered back to life when a raid on an army weapons depot left four soldiers dead and sparked the latest wave of violence.

The violence reached a peak on April 28, when 107 Muslims were killed in clashes with Thai police and army troops.

Thai authorities have been accused of heavy-handed tactics to quell violence in the deprived south including unwarranted detentions and excessive interrogations.

Most of Thai Muslims live in the five southern provinces bordering Malaysia .

Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat are the only Muslim majority provinces in Thailand .

Muslims in these provinces have long complained of discrimination in jobs and education and business opportunities.

The South was a rich Malay kingdom until it was overrun by the Buddhist kingdom of Siam in the late 16th century when it declared its full independence from its earlier status of semi-independence under the rule of the Thai kingdoms of Sukhothai and Ayutthaya .

In 1909, it was annexed by the Kingdom of Siam as part of a treaty negotiated with the British Empire .

Both Yala and Narathiwat were originally part of Pattani, but were split off and became provinces of their own.

There still exists a separatist movement in Pattani that at times erupts in violence like in the late 1980’s when the Pattani United Liberation Front (PULO) fought against the Thai forces for a separate Muslim South.