"We fight to protect our home: Reprisals Against Environmental Defenders in Loei Province, Thailand", Oct 2018

[O]n May 15, 2014,...150 masked men armed with knives, batons, and guns surrounded the small village of Na Nong Bong in Thailand’s... Loei Province. Eight months earlier, local residents erected barricades to block the only road to a controversial gold mine located near the village. During the next six hours, the armed men tore down the barricades and detained and beat dozens of local residents while trucks transported ore out of the mine operated by Thai mining company Tungkum Limited. Residents repeatedly called the local police for help. No one intervened... [In] 2016, the Loei Provincial Court convicted an army lieutenant colonel and a retired army lieutenant general for their involvement in the attacks... This violent incident shed a spotlight on the decade-long struggle of the Khon Rak Ban Kerd Group,... a community-based organization whose members are...living in six villages surrounding the gold mine. Including respected elder women from the six villages, KRBKG has been advocating for the closure of the gold mine as well as remedies for health and environmental impacts they say are linked to the gold mine, and its members have long faced violent threats, intimidation, and criminal prosecutions as a result of their nonviolent and legitimate activities