Joint Submission by: EnLaw Foundation, Community Resource Centre Foundation, Campaign for Public Policy on Mineral Resources, and Protection International Related to: Thailand UPR Session: Session 39 - May 2021 Submitted: 25 March 2021 EnLaw Foundation ENLAWTHAI Foundation (EnLAW) was established in 2001 under the concept “environmental justice in Thailand is made possible by human rights and legal mechanisms”. EnLAW works to provide environmental legal support for people, particularly local communities affected by industrial development and pollution, in exercising their rights and accessing environmental justice; to monitor and identify the flaws in the current environmental legal system and to advocate change of the existing law to provide better protection to environment, health and livelihoods. Community Resource Centre Foundation The Community Resource Centre Foundation (CRC) was established in 2010 committed to protect and promote human, community, and environmental rights. CRC is a watchdog on the implementation of UN Guiding Principles on Business & Human Rights and of the Covenants on ICCPR and ICESCR. A prominent civil society organization leading the field of business and human rights in Thailand, CRC has worked with, built legal skills and capacities, and represented communities who face serious negative environmental and social impacts of ill-planned and poorly regulated industrial and development projects for more than a decade. Campaign for Public Policy in Mineral Resources (PPM) PPM works with rural and community-based Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) in 11 areas, 30 communities throughout Thailand. PPM works to empower the communities to stand up for their right to manage natural resources and the environment by resisting against the corporations conducting mining exploration and operations in their communities. PPM regularly monitors domestic laws and policies related to mineral resources, and demand accountability from the government and private sectors to respect human rights and community rights. Protection International is an international, non-governmental organisation (NGO) that brings protection strategies and security management tools to Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) at risk. Protection International envisions a world where human rights and fundamental freedoms are universally recognized and respected, and where everyone has the right to defend these rights and freedoms without fear of threats or attack. The following submission has been prepared by Protection International based on research carried out by these organisations and information received from independent HRDs in Thailand from 2016 until March 2021. Contact person: Pranom Somwong, PI Protection Desk Thailand Representative, [email protected] 1. General trends facing land, rural, Indigenous and environmental HRDs Since 2014, the government of Thailand, under the leadership of Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha, has used judicial harassment, violence, and threats of violence to repress and intimidate human rights defenders (HRDs). Frustrated with the government’s poor response to the COVID pandemic and economic hardship, activists called for human rights, political change, and respect for minority and Indigenous rights. In response, the government tightened its grip on power and used repressive laws, such as the Public Assembly Bill, Sedition Law, Lèse-majesté Law, and Computer Crimes Act, to repress dissidents. The COVID pandemic and government response has further exposed the systemic injustices impacting human rights and the environment. The Thai government has enacted an Emergency Decree with the stated aim of controlling COVID-19, though it affords them power to act with impunity and further restrict public participation and criminalizes dissent. All those who defend human rights are affected, though the COVID pandemic and response disproportionately affect women human rights defenders (WHRDs) in particular. For WHRDs, the COVID pandemic has compounded the existing structural barriers they face as women and mothers, including poverty, rape and domestic violence, and climate change. This report highlights the government of Thailand’s efforts to intimidate, harass, and repress women/human rights defenders under the period in review, with particular attention paid to the government’s COVID-19 response. 2. Judicial harassment and criminalization of HRDs Human rights defenders regularly face judicial harassment when they publicly oppose government policies or private companies’ activities in their communities. When HRDs raise their voice in calling for justice and ethnic and Indigenous rights, they are harassed, threatened, criminalised and perennially exposed to risks to their lives and liberty by state and non-state actors. Rural, Indigenous and women human rights defenders face the greatest risks and are often among the poorest and most harassed in Thai society. a. HRDs fighting against a power plant in Thepa District, Songkhla Province On 24 November 2017, a group of 17 villagers from Thepa District began a march to Muang District, Songkhla Province. They planned to deliver a letter to Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o- cha on 28 November detailing their opposition to the construction of a coal-fired power plant in their province. However, on 27 November, authorities dispersed the crowd and arrested at least 16 people. Later on, another person was arrested, leading to a total of 17 arrests. All 17 defendants have been charged with blocking traffic, marching on a public highway, fighting with police, carrying weapons in public and staging illegal demonstrations. The “weapons'' in question were poles used to carry signs and banners. In the Court of First Instance, two HRDs who led the rallies were found guilty and sentenced to pay a 5,000 Baht fine while the rest of the cases were dismissed. In Appeals court, all 17 defendants were found guilty for illegal public assembly. Currently, the case is under consideration of the Supreme Court as the defendants appealed. b. Land Rights Defenders in Ban Sup Wai communities, Chaiyaphum Province In June 2014, the National Council for Peace and Order issued a “Forest Reclamation'' policy in which the total area of forested land would be increased from 31% to 40% within 10 years.1 Under this order, the NGO Coordinating Committee on Development estimates that about 9,000 families 1 The NCPO is the military junta that ruled Thailand following a coup d’état in May 2014. would be evicted from their lands.2 As communities continue to be displaced, land and human rights defenders fight harder to assert their right to land and livelihood. It is of great concern that these HRDs are criminalised in order to advance the government’s climate change agenda, particularly when the government is giving away these forests to coal mining companies to expand special economic zones.3 In 2015, the government deployed military power together with officials from the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation to remove a community of villagers called Ban Sup Wai in Chaiyaphum Province who had lived there for several decades prior to the announcement of the Order. The 14 villagers were “asked to return the land”, their rubber trees were cut down and trespass charges were filed against them. The 14 villagers, nine of which are women, were convicted of deteriorating the National Forest reserve and the National Park area within Sai Thong National Park under the National Reserved Forests Act (No. 4), B.E. 2559 (2016), National Park Act B.E 2562 (2019), and Forest Act B.E. 2562 (2019). Thirteen of them were sentenced to imprisonment, with one person given a suspended sentence. They were fined from between 100,000 baht and 1.5 million baht. The Court of Appeals confirmed the judgement and further increased the fine of six of the defendants due to their alleged contribution to climate change by living on the reserved forest area. In March 2021, the Supreme Court suspended one of the WHRD’s sentences in the case, Nittaya Muangklang’s, for three years. However, she must still pay 150,000 baht (4,839 USD) in compensation for allegedly contributing to climate change. The court also ordered her to be evicted from the land within 30 days. The rest of hearings of other HRDs in this case will take place in May 2021. c. Nam Deang Community, member of The Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand (SPFT), Surat Thani Province A group of 15 Thai farmers from the Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand (SPFT) faced criminal charges concerning alleged mischief and occupation of property by World Resources Development Company Limited, a mining and extractive company in Yala province and Equatorial Communication (Thailand) Company. The police subsequently accused the 15 Nam Deang community members of criminal association. Members of SPTF also face a civil case brought against them by Kiatnakin Bank, who also claims to have land rights to the area in the form of a “certificate of authorization” and who is trying to force the community to purchase land allegedly belonging to the bank. The court later dismissed the charges on mischief and criminal association, but later found them guilty of occupation of property and sentenced each defendant to two years and eight months’ imprisonment. Four members of SPFT, including two women and land rights defenders, have been killed since 2010 and a fifth and sixth member survived attempted murders on 8 April 2016 and 20 October 2020, respectively. 3. Threats and intimidation