<p><a href="http://www.khaosodenglish.com/detail.php?newsid=1432799973&amp;section=11">Khaosod English</a>: Soldiers have disrupted two meetings organized by Pheu Thai politicians who were gathering in northeastern Thailand this week to discuss their legal defense for a pending impeachment trial.&nbsp;</p>

<p>Embattled villagers in Thailand’s Northeast Isan region have urged the Thai authorities to consider the environmental impacts of oil drilling before it is too late.</p>

<p>Civil society organisations have submitted a report to the UN urging the Thai junta to grant rights related to natural resources, public healthcare, and education to ethnic minorities.</p>

<p>The criminal court sentenced a man to one month in jail, suspended for one year, for spray-painting an anarchist symbol on the court’s name plate in Bangkok.</p> <p>Ratchada Criminal Court on Wednesday afternoon sentenced Nattapon (surname withheld due to privacy concerns), accused of painting letter ‘A’, resembling the symbol for anarchism, on the name plate of the court, to a month in jail for destroying public property and violating the Public Cleanliness Act. &nbsp; &nbsp;</p>

<div> <div>The Bangkok military court on Tuesday held the first witness hearing in the case where Worachet Pakeerut, courageous law academic from Thammasat University, is accused of twice defying the coup makers’ orders to report in.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>Observers from Thai and international human rights organizations and the US and German Embassies came to observe the trial.&nbsp;</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The public prosecutor filed two charges against Worachet for defying NCPO Orders No. 5/2014, issued on 24 May 2014, and No. 57/2014, issued on 9 June 2014. </div></div>

<p>The criminal court held a preliminary hearing in the case of a man accused of defaming the monarchy on Facebook in camera after six months of detention although the defendant claimed that the alleged lèse majesté Facebook account was not his.</p> <p>Bangkok’s Ratchada Criminal Court on Monday held a preliminary hearing in camera in the case of Piya (surname withheld due to privacy concerns), a 46 year old man who was accused under Article 112 of the Criminal Code, the&nbsp; lèse majesté law.</p>

<div> <div>At least 34 people arrested on Friday evening for commemorating the coup were released without charge, on condition that they stop political activities. However, student activists in Khon Kaen face charges and were released on 7,500 baht bail.</div> <div>&nbsp;</div> <div>The first arrests occurred about 6 pm after a group of students gathered at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), Siam Square. </div></div>

<p dir="ltr">Thai military officers arrested anti-junta activists on their way to file a criminal charge against the Thai junta leader for staging coup d’état against the 2007 constitution during the first 2014 coup anniversary.</p>

<p>Thai military officers have detained students activists in Isan, Thailand’s Northeast, for holding an anti-junta political activity on the first anniversary of 2014 coup d’état. &nbsp;</p> <p>At 1:27 pm on Friday, police and military officers arrested and detained seven student activists from the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.prachatai.org/english/category/dao-din">Dao Din group</a>, a student activist group based in Khon Kaen University, in front of Khon Kaen Province’s replica of the Democracy Monument.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Thailand's park officers arrested four villagers allegedly clearing plots of land in a protected area in northeastern Thailand.</p> <p>According to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lawyercenter2014/posts/832537740129415?notif_t=notify_me">Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR)</a>, eight officers from the Royal Forest Department (RFD) of the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum arrested four villagers from Kon San Sub-district while the villagers were clearing vegetation in Kok Yao protected area of the province.</p>

<p>Activists from Thailand’s northeast held a symbolic activity to condemn the junta’s plan to grant petroleum concessions in the region to business interests while pointing out that the Thai junta’s promise to return happiness to the nation is a lie.</p>

<p>The Thai authorities revealed a plan to reclaim over 715,066 rai of rubber plantations allegedly growing in protected areas to serve the Thai junta’s forest protection policy. &nbsp;</p> <p>According to&nbsp;<a href="http://www.thairath.co.th/content/496826">Thairath News</a>, Nipon Chotiban, Director-General of Thailand’s Department of National Parks (DNP), told the media in early May that the DNP plans to reclaim over 715,066 rai (1,144 sq.km) of rubber farms which were allegedly planted in protected areas nationwide.</p>