<p>The wife of a Karen human rights defender who was disappeared last year has requested the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to investigate the disappearance of her husband as influential people are suspected in the case.</p> <p>Phinnapha Phrueksaphan at 10 am on Thursday, 6 August 2015, submitted a letter to the DSI to request the agency to take up the case of her husband, Porlajee Rakchongcharoen, aka Billy, a Karen human and community rights activist, who disappeared on 17 April 2014.</p>

<p>A military court in northern Thailand has sentenced a man diagnosed with psychosis to five years in prison for destroying the King’s portrait.</p> <p>The military court of the northern province of Chiang Rai on Thursday morning, 6 August 2015, sentenced Samak P., a 48-year-old man accused under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the lèse majesté law, to 10 years imprisonment after the suspect pleaded guilty as charged last month.</p> <p>Since the defendant pleaded guilty, the court reduced the jail term by half to five years.</p>

<p dir="ltr">A Buddhist monk from a well-known temple has filed defamation charges against a newspaper columnist for mocking him on social media over his hair-style.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to <a href="http://manager.co.th/HotShare/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=9580000087890">ASTV Manager</a>, Venerable Aphichat Promjan, the chief lecturer monk of Benjamabophit Temple, a Bangkok temple under royal patronage, on Tuesday, 4 August 2015, filed a complaint at Dusit Police Station concerning offences under the 2007 Computer Crime Act against Panthip Teeraneat, a columnist of Matichon Newspaper. &nbsp;</p>

<p>A human rights defender charged with sedition for supporting the 14 anti-junta activists has denied the charges while a large crowd of supporters demanded that the authorities drop the charges against him.</p> <p>Baramee Chairat, a recently re-elected member of the board of Amnesty International Thailand (AI Thailand) and a coordinator of the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.prachatai.org/english/category/assembly-of-the-poor">Assembly of the Poor (AOP)</a>, on Wednesday morning, 5 August 2015, went to Samranrat Police Station for interrogation.</p>

<p>A network of civil society organisations and human rights defenders have issued a joint statement, calling on Thai lawmakers not to approve the appointment of the candidates to Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).</p>

<p>A network of Thai university students has submitted a statement to the Education Ministry to call for an end to hierarchy and the abuse of human rights during university hazing rituals.</p> <p>Students from the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AntiSOTUSPage">Network for Hazing Reform for Human Rights</a> on Monday, 3 August 2015, submitted a statement to the Ministry of Education to state the group’s stand against the notorious SOTUS system found in many of Thailand’s universities.</p>

<p>The Thai Administrative Court has dismissed a sedition complaint filed against the Thai junta for issuing an order to prohibit certain people from traveling overseas.</p> <p>According to Post Today News, the Central Administrative Court on Monday, 3 August 2015, dismissed a complaint that Watana Muangsook, a former Minister of Commerce of the Pheu Thai Party, recently filed against the junta’s National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO).</p> <p>Watana filed the complaint against the NCPO for issuing an order which prohibited him from travelling to Singapore as planned on 15 July 2015.</p>

<div> <div>Representatives from various civil society groups gathered last week in Bangkok to address issues for the next UN Human Rights Council review of the human rights situation in Thailand.&nbsp;</div> </div>

<p>UNHCR has devised a plan to send refugees from camps in Thailand back to their homes in Myanmar on a voluntary basis while some refugee representatives said that they were not involved in the plan.</p>

<p>More than two-thirds of the committee responsible for screening the candidates to Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) are high-ranking military officers.</p> <p>A leaked classified document listing the members of the committee authorized to screen the behaviour and ethical backgrounds of the candidates to the NHRC shows that 12 of the 17 are four-star military offcers.</p> <p>Four other members are civilians and the remaining member is a police general.</p>

<div> <div>Thailand made another positive signal toward the peace process in the Deep South when the police revealed that another elderly jailed insurgent will be granted early release.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Pol Lt Gen Anurut Krisanakaraket, Director of Southern Border Provinces Police Operation Centre (SBPOC), revealed in an Isara News Agency report on Tuesday that the SBPOC will propose to the Justice Ministry that an early release be granted to Da-o Maseng, better known as Haji Da-o Thanam, a former member of Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO), who has been in jail for 1 </div></div>

<p dir="ltr">The Thai military officers in Isan, northeastern Thailand, summoned a student filmmaker for talks because the student did not asked for permissions to film a documentary in a restricted area with protracted mining conflict.</p> <p>On 24 July 2015, the military officers of the northeastern Maha Sarakham Province summoned Pariwat Kampeera, a 21 years-old student of Maha Sarakham University for a discussion over a documentary he had filmed for a TV program called ‘Thi Nee Ban Rao’ (This is my home) of Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS).</p>