FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Surat Thani oil-palm plantation protest broken up

Surat Thani oil-palm plantation protest broken up

A team of some 2,000 police, Army and security volunteers rounded up about 200 demonstrators who had occupied a privately run oil-palm plantation in Surat Thani's Khian Sa district yesterday morning, but seven protest leaders managed to escape and are now

The crackdown on a total of about 1,000 unauthorised land occupants – most of whom came from outside Surat Thani – took place at the plantation at 10am. The 200 detained protesters were later released back to their hometowns after police collected their personal details.
Officials also demolished their makeshift shelters, set up in village-like fashion, replete with homes and shops.
The private company has rented the 1,348-rai plantation plot from the Surat Thani Treasury Office since July 12, but the demonstrators insisted the land belonged to the state and occupied a large part of it, defying the provincial authority’s order for them to move out on July 15.
Unable to make use of the land, the private company filed a police complaint, leading to the crackdown.
 

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