Take action on behalf of human rights defenders in Thailand. Copy the enclosed letter and send it to the address provided. Thank you for taking action.
On 24 September 2014, at about 4.30 p.m., a group of eight men – including two local policemen in uniform, one military officer in uniform, two members of local mafia group and three unidentified men – came to the Khlong Sai Pattana Community in Chaiburi District, Surat Thani Province, which is affiliated with the Southern Peasants’ Federation of Thailand (SPFT). The group of men urged the inhabitants of the village to leave the area within seven days.
The Khlong Sai Pattana Community states that it has a legitimate right to remain on its land, according to Thailand’s Agricultural Land Reform Office (ALRO) following a Resolution that was issued during the meeting of the ‘Committee to Solve Problems of the Land Reform Network of Thailand’ on 11 March 2009 in the Thai Parliament. The peasant community states that there has been an attempt by the Oil Palm plantation to sell its land. The recent intimidation of the local peasant community is part of an ongoing campaign of harassment and violence since 2009, which has killed three human rights defenders.
Although land rights have been given to the Khlong Sai Pattana community, a large area of this land is still being illegally occupied by oil palm plantations over the past thirty years. The Agricultural Land Reform Office filed a civil law suit against the Jew Kung Juy Development Co. on behalf of the Khlong Sai Pattana community in order to evict the company from the community’s lands. The Court of First Instance and the Appeals Court upheld the civil law suit and ruled to evict the company. The case is now being appealed before the Supreme Court.
The violence against the community has been happening since August 2009. In 2010, human rights defender and SPFT member, Mr Somporn Pattaphum, was shot and killed in the area. In October 2012, a farmer from the community was threatened by an armed, unidentified man in a truck who told her that the community should vacate the area. On 19 November 2012, leaders of the local peasant community, human rights defenders Ms Montha Chukaew and Ms Pranee Boonrat, were shot and killed.
Furthermore, on 8 November 2013, shots were fired in the air by unidentified men to intimidate members of the community. On 16 August 2014, two local mafia members brought fifty soldiers to carry out searches of eight houses belonging to members of the Khlong Sai Pattana Community. Those searches were carried out without any court warrant.
Front Line Defenders is concerned by the intimidation and violence targeting members of the Khlong Sai Pattana community.
Information Source : frontlinedefenders.org