<p>A real estate dealer has been sentenced to 12 years in prison under the lèse majesté law for making claims about the former royal consort for business interests. </p>
<p>On Tuesday, 5 April 2016, the Criminal Court sentenced Boontham Boonthepprathan, 65, a property dealer, to 16 years in jail under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the lèse majesté law. The court reduced the sentenced by one fourth to 12 years because the accused was cooperative during the trial.</p>
<p>The Royal Thai Army says that a newly recruited private, who died yesterday after being brutally beaten by other soldiers, had reportedly used drugs. The family says otherwise. </p>
<p>A soldier in Thailand’s Deep South has died a few days after he was reportedly tortured at a military base for committing disciplinary offences. </p>
<p><a href="http://mgr.manager.co.th/South/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9590000034453">The Manager Online reported</a> on Monday, 4 April 2016, that 23-year-old Private Songtham Mutmat from Phayak Military Camp in Bannang Sata District of the restive Deep Southern Province of Yala, died at the provincial hospital. </p>
<p>The Thai military has prohibited a seminar on the controversial draft constitution in the northern province of Chiang Mai as the public referendum on the draft is drawing near. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.matichon.co.th/news/92664">Matichon Online reported</a> on Saturday, 2 April 2016, that Sunai Phasuk, a coordinator of Human Rights Watch (HRW), tweeted on his Twitter account that military officers from Kawila Military Camp in Chiang Mai ordered the cancellation of a seminar on ‘Reading the Constitution as Literature and Art’.</p>
<p>Military and police officers have searched the offices of Pheu Thai party politicians in northern Thailand and confiscated red bowls inscribed with Thai new year greetings from former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.matichon.co.th/news/92875">Matichon Online</a> reported that at 10:30 am on Saturday, 2 April 2016, soldiers from the 15th Cavalry Squadron in the northern province of Nan and police officers searched three offices of former Members of Parliament from the Pheu Thai party in Mueang, Pua, and Wiang Sa districts of the province.</p>
<p>The chief of the Royal Thai Army says that a new standardised version of the so-called attitude adjustment sessions is completed, implying that political dissidents could be sent to the restive Deep South.</p>
<p>The military have visited the home of a community rights activist in the northeastern province of Sakon Nakhon after she campaigned for the right of rubber farmers whose rubber trees were cut down by the military under the policy to evict farmers from protected areas. </p>
<p>The police on Friday 1 April 2016 confiscated a red bowl from a supporter of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. The woman came to give Yingluck moral support when the former Prime Minister visited the Supreme Court (Criminal Division) for Holders of Political Office, Thai media reported.</p>
<p>The message “I love the person you hate and I hate whom you love” was inscribed on the bowl. There is no further report about the woman.</p>
<p>The junta has exempted the construction of coal-fired power plants in Songkhla and Krabi provinces from city planning laws in a bid to push forward controversial projects despite strong local opposition. </p>
<p>The exemption was published in the Royal Thai Gazette on Thursday 31 March 2016. It was issued after NCPO Order No. 4/2016, signed on 20 March 2016 by Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, in his capacity as the Chair of the National Energy Policy Committee. </p>
<p>The Thai military summoned a key leader of a group campaigning against a waste-fired power plant for a discussion, saying that he is on the list of ‘influential figures’.</p>
<p><a href="https://tlhr2014.wordpress.com/2016/03/30/ncpo-summoned-taweesak-junk-power-plant/">Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR)</a> reported that on Wednesday, 30 March 2016, military officers released Taweesak Inkwang, a key leader of a campaign against a waste-fired power plant in Chiang Rak Yai Subdistrict in the central province of Pathum Thani, after hours of discussion.</p>
<div>In an attempt to censor voices against the draft constitution, the junta threatened the Pheu Thai Party after it issued a statement denouncing the draft constitution as undemocratic. </div>
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<div>On Wednesday, 30 March 2016, the Pheu Thai Party issued a statement condemning the final draft of the constitution and urging people to turn it down in the referendum, scheduled in August.</div>
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<div>In response to Pheu Thai’s move, Col Piyapong Klinphan, a spokesperson for the junta, said the junta thanks Pheu Thai for having a clear stance on the draft, but t
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<div>The ambiguity and legal loopholes of the Public Assembly Act make it difficult for the labour movement to hold assemblies. Labour unionists are calling for the authorities to come up with a clear framework of practical law enforcement.</div>
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<div>On Friday, 25 March 2016, the Confederation of Industrial Labour of Thailand, in coordination with IndustriALL Global Union, held a seminar on the 2014 Public Assembly Act and its impact on the exercise of labour rights under the 1975 Labour Relations Act.
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