<p>The police have prevented a local conservation group from showing a documentary film on controversial petroleum concessions in the region, saying it might breach the Copyright Act. </p>
<p>An environmental protection group in Isan, Thailand’s northeast, has issued a statement to urge state agencies to come up with measures to protect the local environmental from gas drilling activities.</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>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 authorities continue to suppress local activists and villagers who oppose petroleum exploration in villages in Thailand’s Northeast.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lawyercenter2014/posts/800328040017052?fref=nf">Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR)</a>, the military on 25 February brought Thawatchai Surat, a northeastern energy activist, to Buriram Muang Police Station and tried to force him to sign an agreement not to campaign against a petroleum operator. However, Thawatchai refused to sign any document. </p>
<p>Amid tension with villagers, the Thai military continues to help oil company transport equipment into a potential oilfield in the northeast, despite an NHRC order to halt the process.</p>
<p>Despite a recent order by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for the company to halt operations due to the project’s controversial Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), military officers and district officials have helped the company to occupy major roads leading to the oil field to secure the convoy’s access to the area since Saturday.</p>
<p>The military has helped a petroleum company bypass proper environmental impact assessment procedures and an NHRC order to halt petroleum exploration and threatened villagers opposing the exploration with martial law.</p>
<p>About 40 armed police and military officers on Friday morning assisted <a href="http://www.amchamthailand.com/ACCT/asp/corpdetail.asp?CorpID=1029">Apico (Korat) Limited</a>, a US-based oil and gas exploration company, to move oil-drilling equipment into a potential oil field called Dongmoon in Kranuan District of the northeastern province of Khon Kaen.</p>