The Provincial Court of the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon has sent two villagers to prison for encroaching into national forest reserves while six others received suspended jail terms.  

According to Esaan Land Reform News, Sakon Nakhon Provincial Court on Wednesday 9:30 pm, 21 October 2015, sentenced Surat Sisawat to six years in prison and Kong Phongsakban, Surat’s aunt, to two years and six months for encroaching into Pa Dong Chom Phu Phan and Dong Kracher National Forest Reserves in Sakon Nakhon Province.  

The two villagers are from the embattled Chat Rabiap community of Phu Phan District in the province, where 31 villagers, including the two, have been charged with the same offense.

The court, however, halved Surat’s jail term from six to three years.

Six other villagers were also sentenced to imprisonment, but the court suspended the jail terms for two years.

About 50 people from the village came to support the accused at the verdict hearing on Wednesday morning.

Earlier on 12 June 2015, the Provincial Court sentenced Pakdee Sisawat, another Chat Rabiap villager accused of the same offence, to nine months in jail and a 10,000 baht fine, but suspended the jail term for two years.

According to Chai Thongdinok, a member of Thai Ban Phu Rai Sit Sakon Nakhon, a local group which promotes land rights for local people in Sakon Nakhon, since the enactment of the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) Order No. 64/2014, many villagers’ rubber plantations in the province have been cut down by the authorities as the rubber farmers have been accused of trespassing into protected areas.

He said that in August last year the authorities cut down the rubber trees on 20 rai (0.032 sq.km) of land in the area which he planted.

After the junta issued Orders 64/2014 and 66/2014 to protect and reclaim Thailand’s protected areas in June 2014, many poor communities countrywide have been evicted by the authorities.

According to the NGO Coordinating Committee on Development (NGO-COD) of the Northeast, since last year, 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.