<p dir="ltr">Despite talk from the junta about land reform in the form of a progressive land tax to tackle disparity and increase public revenue, research ironically shows that the Thai military is one of the country’s biggest landowners.</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-989fc783-5c7a-e91a-7cc0-a37f984ee731">Community rights groups have urged the junta not to ignore community rights and to reconsider their forest protection policies after nearly 1,800 families, most of them in Thailand’s North and Northeast, have been severely affected.</span></p>
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<div>The military and police on Sunday detained at least four activists after they held a silent press briefing on the forced cancellation of a cultural event on land reform. </div>
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<div>At about 2 pm the activists were detained and taken to Chanasongkram Police Station. At around 4.30pm they were released with no charges.</div>
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<div>Earlier on Sunday the activists held a silent press briefing named “No Talk Show under the Military Boot: When the military violates our rights to hold the talk show ‘Our land . . .
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<div>Under the Thai military dictatorship, Thais are not only deprived of their freedom of expression and assembly but also the right to wear their favourite t-shirts. The Chiang Mai military has been especially paranoid and sensitive about t-shirts. In the latest incident, the Chiang Mai military attempted to force northern land rights activists not to wear the group’s campaign t-shirts when meeting a minister.
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