Displaced Thais file charges against interior minister

BANGKOK, January 31 (TNA) - A group of 351 displaced Thais living in the northwestern Tak Province, bordering Myanmar, have filed charges against the interior minister and three others with the Central Administrative Court, demanding for Thai citizenship, after fighting for Thai citizenship for several years. Four representatives of the 351 displaced Thais and a group of lawyers submitted the complaints to Bangkok's Central Administrative Court on Friday, charging the interior minister, the permanent secretary for interior and the director-general of the ministry's Department of Provincial Administration, as well as the Committee on Thai Nationality for not considering and certifying their status, which has deprived them from being Thai citizens. The displaced Thais also charged that the authorities' decision has also affected the status of the rest of Thais having Myanmar nationality and currently living in Tak although it is their fundamental right under the 2007 Constitution, which enforced at the time when the court approved the case in March 2014. The 351 displaced Thais requested that the Court granted them and the rest in Tak the Thai nationality. Surapong Kongchantuk, chairman of the Lawyers Council of Thaiand (LCT)'s subcommittee on the stateless, migrant workers and the displaced, said, meanwhile, that the resolution adopted by the interior minister and the three others was inaccurate and not in line with the historical facts, as their resolution has affected displaced Thais living in Tak and these people need justice from the Central Administrative Court. (TNA)