Thai court dismisses Greenpeace's complaint on GM papayas

BANGKOK, October 21 (TNA) - Bangkok's Supreme Administrative Court has upheld an earlier decision of the Central Administrative Court by dismissing a complaint filed by Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Thailand) on genetically modified (GM) papayas. The Supreme Administrative Court ruled on the case on Tuesday, in which Greenpeace environmentalists earlier filed the complaint against the Thai Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives' Department of Agriculture for experimenting the cultivation of the GM papayas. Under the complaint, Greenpeace Southeast Asia (Thailand) accused the department of causing genetically modified organism (GMO) contamination with the experimentation. Like the Central Administrative Court's verdict on July 31, 2008, the Supreme Administrative Court stated that the Department of Agriculture had implemented appropriate measures to tackle the contamination. After the ruling, Sornkrai Sornsri, Greenpeace Southeast Asia's lawyer, told journalists that Greenpeace accepts the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling, but it will keep watching out for GMO contamination in Thailand for public safety. The lawyer cited the Supreme Administrative Court as reasoning that the Department of Agriculture had authority in the experimentation and, following the discovered contamination, it had stopped the project, the distribution and sale of the GM papayas and destroyed them properly. (TNA)