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‼️ HUMAN RIGHTS ALERT ‼️ Two Thai grassroots leaders sentenced to prison for peaceful protest on land and housing rights
- Manushya Foundation
- 1 hour ago
- 1 min read
On 28 January, Theeranet Chaisuwan (Chair of P-Move or People Movement for A Just Society and Committee Member of the Southern Peasants Federation of Thailand) and Jamnong Noopan (Vice-President of the Four-Region Slum Network and P-Move Advisor) organized a peaceful protest demanding land and housing rights and speaking up against the unjust impacts of state policies and projects on affected communities.
Dusit Police investigators claimed they supposedly violated the Public Assembly Act 2015 for organizing an assembly within the 50-meter restricted zone order.
While the two year prison sentence has been reduced and suspended, it still does not dismiss the fact that affected communities’ demands for government action were treated as a crime.
When people defend their land and housing rights, the State responds with SLAPPs and persecution. That’s not justice, that’s repression!
As decolonial intersectional feminists, we’ve seen this pattern too many times: SLAPPs are used to silence community leaders who only clamour for their human rights to be respected.
⚠️ The Public Assembly Act 2015 is being weaponized against communities, yet it is still missing from real safeguards under the Anti-SLAPP Bill. Protection that excludes protest rights is not protection.
✊ We stand with P-Move’s call to repeal the Public Assembly Act 2015. Manushya also remains firm in our commitment to defend defenders affected by SLAPP, from UN complaints to public campaigns, and remind Thailand to honour its international human rights commitments.
Peaceful protest is not a crime!
Repeal the Public Assembly Act 2015!
Stop silencing defenders’ voices!
STOP SLAPP!
#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings
👉 Learn more details of the case from P-Move on this Facebook post.