The UN's regional human rights office (OHCHR) said it felt compelled to speak out after an appeals court in Thailand's south upheld the acquittal of the sole suspect in the murder of an activist last year. He was the fourth leader of a local group which campaigns against land expropriations by palm oil companies to be murdered since 2010. Thailand has long been an intensely dangerous place in which to take on powerful interest groups. A 2014 report by Global Witness said Thailand was the eighth most dangerous country in the world to be a land rights activist -- and the second most dangerous in Asia after the Philippines. Angkhana's husband Somchai, a rights lawyer who represented Muslims arrested in Thailand's deep south, disappeared in 2004.

Source: The Nation Bangkok November 28, 2016 11:32 UTC