<div> <div>Three years after it staged a coup, Thailand’s junta is subjecting rural people to harassment and prosecution, but pleasing investors, according to local NGOs.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has been repeatedly criticised for its failure to solve economic problems and for the slide back to authoritarianism. </div></div>

<p>The military has intimidated a human rights defender in the restive Deep South, ordering her not to post comments on Facebook about human rights violations.</p> <p>On 1 July 2017, six men believed to be military officers in plainclothes visited the shop of the family of Anchana Heemmina, president of Duay Jai, a local human rights advocacy group in the Deep South, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://voicefromthais.wordpress.com/2017/07/05/public-statement-isoc-region-4-should-stop-intimidating-a-hrd/">the Cross Cultural Foundation (CrCF)</a>.</p>

<div>A labour rights lawyer has been imprisoned for defaming a court, leaving stranded his five-month pregnant wife. </div>

<p dir="ltr">Condemning the decision by a Thai court to put a young pro-democracy activist on trial for sharing a BBC profile of the new king on Facebook, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the authorities to stop using the lèse-majesté law both to jail critics and to deter the media from covering the monarchy.</p>

<p>“We talked by phone. My little brother talked for me, I didn’t talk to her myself (laughs). After more than a week, I went to pick her up to live with me, and then I proposed to her. I can’t really pinpoint why she’s so nice. I like her for how hard-working she is, waking up early to do housework and taking care of the kids. When I took her to my uncle for him to look her over, he said I could have her if I want. Before, I took many girls for my uncle to look at but he said this one got up late, or was too lazy to wash the dishes.&nbsp; Once the meal was over they hid the dirty dishes. Lazy. But Sim is hard-working. She gets up to do laundry at 4 and 5 am. Uncle sneaked in to watch her.”</p> <p></p>

<p dir="ltr">Why is it hard for us to imagine what the sex lives of disabled people are like? Will they have children? Have they ever had boyfriends or girlfriends? This may reflect the old saying that “sex” and “disability” are completely separate from each other. Many disabled people have never received sex education; some are kept away from it; some are afraid because they don’t know anything. The result is that many of the disabled and their families choose to bury this topic away as deep as possible, with many avoiding the problem altogether through sterilization.</p> <p></p>

<p dir="ltr">For the past few years, the issue of human trafficking in Thailand has continued to be front page news. But instead of focusing on the many successes of the counter trafficking response, these articles have tended to highlight more of the inadequacies of the on-going efforts. As one of the first countries to bring the issue of human trafficking to the world stage in the early 1990s, this has been a terrible embarrassment among those who feel that Thailand’s past achievements have been forgotten in recent times. One thing is clear.</p>

<div> <h2>AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL</h2> <h2>PUBLIC STATEMENT</h2> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div><strong>Thailand: Proposed amendments to Computer-Related Crime Act fail to address human rights concerns</strong></div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Bangkok, 25 October 2016</div> </div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>We, the undersigned international human rights organizations, urge Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly (NLA) to reject currently proposed amendments to the 2007 Computer-Related Crime Act (CCA) and to instead adopt amendments that would bring the law into l </div>

<p dir="ltr">The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) is deeply saddened by the death of Nam-gi Baek, a 70-year old activist farmer. Baek had been unconscious after being hit by a police water cannon during a peaceful protest in Seoul on 14 November 2015. FORUM-ASIA strongly condemns the failure of the Government of South Korea to conduct a thorough, impartial, and independent investigation into the excessive use of force by the police, especially the lethal use of a water cannon.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Human rights workers have argued &lsquo;wars on drugs&rsquo; in Asia are feeding into dangerous international norms of impunity, drawing parallels between a campaign launched by former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and that of current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.</p><p>At a panel hosted at the Foreign Correspondents&rsquo; Club of Thailand (FCCT) on Wednesday, 31 August 2016, experts voiced concern over the explicitness with which Duterte has flouted international law to enact a wave of extrajudicial killings of drug traffickers in the Philippines.</p>

<p>The recent disrobing of Venerable Sermsak Thammasaro or “Monk Ti” for his dwarfism has spurred discussion about Thai Buddhism and discrimination. According to liberal Buddhist monk Venerable Phramaha Paiwan Warawunno, Monk Ti was disrobed because ordination of the disabled is against the Buddhist Vinaya. According to well-known religious scholar Surapot Thaweesak, Thai Buddhism tends to rule in favour of the clergy, and under the power of the Sangha Supreme Council (SSC), does not allow other parties to pass judgement on cases or issues that crop up.</p> <p></p>

<p>A group of men have threatened indigenous sea nomads in southern Thailand with guns in an attempt to force them off disputed land.</p>