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#NewYearDonation: Let’s Fight Together for Corporate Accountability & Climate Justice!
💫 Kick-off 2022 right! Make a #NYResolution 💸 Donate to help us bring #JusticeForPhichit!
#JusticeForPhichit ⛏ In not even two decades, the gold mine owned by Akara Resources Limited devastated the health and livelihoods of over 6,000 villagers in Phichit and Phetchabun Provinces. But they have never given up and courageously keep fighting for Justice and compensation they deserve!
🌾 During the mining operations, leaked chemical residues contaminated soil that had been used for farming for generations. Now, the villagers can no longer depend on growing their own food.💧 Worse still, they even have to buy their drinking water since the groundwater was also polluted and is too dangerous to drink.
⚠️ Depending on food and drinking water imported from outside their community, the villagers are now vulnerable to food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition as they often can't afford them. Despite their responsibility, neither the company nor the Government provided adequate compensation that would cover new expenses cutting into an already strained budget of the villagers.
🚨 The community members who engaged in peaceful protests against the mine and its negative impacts on people and the environment faced judicial harassment. Through Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP), the company tried to harass, intimidate and exhaust dissenting villagers, especially the community leader Ms. Premsineee.
✊🏻 The class-action lawsuit filed in May 2016 by 362 villagers was accepted in October 2019 by the Ratchada Civil Court in Bangkok but it took 2 years for the proceedings to start! Using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse, court hearings kept being postponed until November 2021. Now, the villagers are waiting for the next hearing on 25 January, hoping that Justice will finally be delivered after years of suffering!
#WeAreManushyan ♾️ Equal Human Beings
✊🏻 #JusticeForPhichit Let’s stand in solidarity with the Phichit villagers & support their fight against corporate abuse by💰 making your #NewYearDonation to:
Kasikorn Bank No. 001-8-68961-8
(Community Leaders joint account for #JusticeForPhichit - Premsinee Sintontammatuch, Sirirat Taitong, Chatchadapon Lorsap)
🎨 Illustration by: @notvalentinaleoni