Social development
Ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples
Thailand: Officials Indicted for Karen Activist’s Murder
Thai authorities should fully and fairly prosecute all those responsible for the murder of a prominent ethnic Karen environmental activist in 2014, Human Rights Watch said today.On August 15, 2022, the Attorney General’s Office formally notified the Justice Ministry’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI) of its ...
Indigenous rights deserve a break
Exactly a year ago this month, a group of indigenous Karen forest dwellers left their resettlement village in Kaeng Krachan National Park to go back to Bang Kloy Bon and Jai Paen Din, their ancestral homes deep in the jungle. They were immediately arrested and ...
Bangkok Post Reporter
Move Forward Party proposes new bill to protect indigenous culture
MPs from the Move Forward Party (MFP) have proposed a new bill to protect indigenous rights and cultures.The proposal was filed with the House Speaker on Wednesday (9 June) by five MPs from MFP, including Nattapon Suebsakwong and Manop Keereepuwadol, who are from the indigenous ...
Govt calls talks on Karen row
The government has pledged to solve land conflicts between the Ministry of Natural Resources and ethnic Karen villagers now dwelling in Kaeng Krachan National Park within 30 days, Thamanat Prompow, deputy agriculture minister, said.“We will solve this problem by using constructive dialogue. Both sides need ...
Bangkok Post Reporter
Bang Kloi saga continues with rights groups accusing the government of not doing enough
The government is continuing, this week, to play down the situation in Bang Kloi as ethnic Karen people protest their displacement from their ancestral homeland and continued persecution by the state.Activist groups representing the Karen have said that the government is not doing enough to ...
DNP surveys growing Karen population
The Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plantation (DNP) has begun verifying the number of Karen people living in the Bang Kloi community in the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi.The department ordered a committee to run a verification process.This comes after an unusual increase ...
Apinya Wipatayotin
Indigenous Karen villagers arrested after returning to ancestral land
87 members of the Bang Kloi indigenous Karen community, who travelled back to the location of their former village in the Kaeng Krachan forest, have been forcibly taken out of the forest and arrested by park officials, police, and military officers.The community members were taken ...
PM: Government won't use force in Bang Kloi
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Tuesday said his administration won’t use force against ethnic Karen villagers living in Phetchaburi’s Kaeng Krachan National Park as past governments did.Instead, this government will take care of those living in Bang Kloi by ensuring they have proper jobs and ...
Mongkol Bangprapa
Displaced Karen demand land back
A civic group protested in front of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry building on Friday as part of a campaign to pressure the government to resettle ethnic Karen villagers displaced from the Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi over a decade ago.Twenty activists and ...
Apinya Wipatayotin
Indigenous Peoples in Thailand: A contradictory interpretation
Indigeneity in Thailand is a complex and confusing topic for many. On the one hand, Thailand is a signatory to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), a landmark UN document for Indigenous Peoples globally. Moreover, there is a strong Indigenous ...
Ian G. Baird.
