Military attempts to cancel media workshop in restive south

Military officers tried to cancel a media workshop in the restive deep south, claiming that they were ordered to do so by their superiors. However, the event was eventually able to go ahead.
 
Military officers from an unidentified unit on Friday morning contacted the mayor of Bannang Sata District of the southern province of Yala, one of the three restive deep south provinces, to force a media workshop organized by Wartani, a local media group, to be cancelled only five minutes before the workshop was to start.
 
The military officers claimed that they had received an order from their superiors to call off the workshop.   
 
The workshop at the mayor’s house was part of Wartani’s media training programme on peace journalism in the south of Thailand, which was scheduled to be held from 6-8 March. The organisers informed the military about the workshop a month in advance. 
 
After the incident, Wartani contacted Col Pramote Promin, the spokesperson for the 4th Region Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC), to question the order. Promin informed the group that the order has not been documented in the ISOC report and that the incident might have been the result of a misunderstanding.
 
In the end, the workshop was allowed to go ahead after the District Officer of Bannang Sata coordinated with the authorities.
 
About 50 people joined the workshop on Friday. Earlier, the training had been organised in Wang subdistrict in Yala with roughly the same number of participants.   
 

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