A provincial court has dismissed charges against a villager accused of land encroachment after the junta
enacted return the forest policy.
The Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF) reported that the Provincial Court of Fang District of Chiang Mai on 21 September 2017 dismissed charges against Arya Sea Chang.
She was indicted of encroaching into a protected area in Ban Nor Lae Village of Monpin Sub-district of Fang.
The court, however, reasoned that the allegedly encroached protected area was already utilised by the local community before Arya occupied the land plot because the villagers were permitted to make use of parts of the land under the initiative of the Royal Project.
The CrCF added that in July the court gave a similar verdict to another person who faced similar charges.
After the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) issued the NCPO Orders 64/2014 and 66/2014 in June 2014 to protect and reclaim Thailand’s protected areas, many poor communities countrywide have been evicted and charged by the authorities.
According to the NGO Coordinating Committee on Development (NGO-COD) of the Northeast, since 2014, at least 103 small-scale farmers have already been accused of encroaching on protected areas and almost 1,800 in the Northeast have now been prohibited from using their farmland and are about to receive court summons for alleged encroachment.
Arya Sea Chang (Photo from CrCF)