<p>Police and public officials have prevented a press briefing by Amnesty International (AI) on a report about state-sponsored torture, saying that the AI speakers might be charged for not having work permits.</p> <p>On 28 September 2016, at Four Wings Hotel in Bangkok, Special Branch police officers and officials from the Department of Labour Protection and Welfare intervened in a press briefing on an AI report titled “Make Him Speak by Tomorrow: Torture and Other Ill-Treatment in Thailand”.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Nearly two months after the referendum on the junta-sponsored constitution, the police are summoning more people for violating the junta’s ban on political gatherings over a public seminar about the constitution.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Police officers and soldiers have prohibited commemorating the death of an anti-junta taxi driver who committed suicide after the 2006 coup d’état.</p> <p>At around 1 pm on 19 September 2016, many police officers and soldiers were deployed at the flyover in front of the Thai Rath newspaper headquarters on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road, Bangkok, prior to a commemoration for Nuamthong Praiwan.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Public prosecutors have indicted a Prachatai journalist and four anti-junta activists over leaflets allegedly campaigning against the junta-sponsored draft constitution. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p dir="ltr">At the Provincial Court of Ratchaburi Province on Monday morning, 29 August 2016, the prosecutors formally indicted Taweesak Kerdpoka, a Prachatai journalist, and four anti-junta New Democracy Movement (NDM) activists: Pakorn Areekul, Anucha Rungmorakot, Anan Loked, and Phanuwat Songsawadchai, a student activist from Maejo University, Phrae campus.</p>

<p dir="ltr">To amend woes in the new constitution, the Thai junta premier has once again enacted absolute power to issue an order aimed at patronising and protecting Buddhism and other faiths. However, experts warn the order could be used by the authorities as a license to suppress rights and liberty.</p> <p></p>

<p dir="ltr">The Thai Digital Federation has urged lawmakers to amend the Computer Crime Bill draft, saying that it opens space for authorities to suppress rights to freedom of expression.</p>

<p>Voice TV today pulled two well-known political commentators from programs it airs for 10 days beginning today under pressure from the military regime and telecommunications regulators.</p> <p>An unnamed senior executive at the station offered to muzzle the two commentators to avoid harsher sanctions by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, a state agency granted special powers last month to censor the media, according to Commissioner Supinya Klangnarong.</p> <p>The station’s news director took to Twitter to explain the rationale.</p>

<div> <div>At least four universities in Thailand have complied with the junta’s censorship measures by prohibiting their students and lecturers from discussing the junta-sponsored draft charter and the August referendum.&nbsp;</div> </div> <h2>Khon Kaen University bans public discussion of draft charter &nbsp;</h2> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div> <div>On Saturday, 30 July 2016, Jirawat Sanitchon, Deputy Dean of Khon Kaen University’s Faculty of Agriculture, barred student activists from hosting ‘Talk for Freedom’, a public discussion on the draft charter to be held the following day, reasoning that the tal </div></div>

<p>Thai police have interrogated an anti-junta folk rock musician over the content of his songs before accusing him of violating the law by selling CDs at a public event on the upcoming draft charter referendum.</p> <p>A plainclothes police officer from Chana Songkhram Police Station, Bangkok, at around 6:30 pm on Saturday, 30 July 2016, arrested Parinya Cheewinkulpathom, a guitarist in the folk rock band ‘Tubtim Siam’ (Siamese Ruby), known for its anti-establishment political songs,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.tlhr2014.com/th/?p=1357">Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) reported</a>.</p>

<p>Thai authorities have detained a nationalist in Isaan, northeastern Thailand, over a ‘no vote’ campaign. Meanwhile, another junta opponent in the north has been imprisoned over leaflets campaigning against the junta-sponsored draft charter.</p> <p>Kaewsaengbun Thamhaidi, deputy head of a nationalist political group called ‘People’s Peaceful Revolution’, reported on Thursday, 28 July 2016, that the authorities had detained Wichan Phuwihan, a 48-year-old member of the group, at Ubon Ratchathani Prison, after arresting him on Tuesday.</p>

<p dir="ltr">When the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) announced the “3 part road map” in June 2014, it indicated that restrictions on rights put in place following the 22 May 2014 coup would be temporary. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, and on several occasions since, Amnesty International has raised concerns that - even as temporary measures - many of these restrictions amount to human rights violations and as such are unacceptable.</p>

<p>Royalist Thais have filed a lèse majesté complaint against the administrators of a Facebook political satire page. &nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Members of a group called ‘Network to Protect the Monarchy’ in the central province of Sing Buri on Tuesday, 26 July 2016, filed a legal complaint against the administrators of the Facebook page ‘You Can’t Be Slim [a derogative Thai political term usually referring to the pro-establishment yellow shirts] if You Are Not Buffalos’,&nbsp;<a href="http://politic.tnews.co.th/contents/197730/">T-News reported</a>.</p>