by the agro monsters. With a wishy-washy prime minister, who clearly has no political will to make the right decision on this matter, we are indeed in a helpless situation." Intimidation of environmental activists In November 2016, the UN's regional human rights office (OHCHR) condemned Thailand for a series of murders of land activists which have gone unpunished, drawing attention to the kingdom's poor record in solving such killings. The office said it was 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 in 2015. Thailand has long been a 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, the second most dangerous in Asia after the Philippines. Rights groups say between 50 and 60 rights defenders have been murdered in the last 20 years. There are also at least 81 open cases of enforced disappearance dating back as far the mid-1990s, according to the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances. On 21 June 2004, Charoen Wat-aksorn was assassinated as he alighted from a bus returning to Prachuap Khiri Khan after he gave testimony about environmental destruction in Bo Nok and Ban Krut to the Senate in Bangkok. Charoen was a human rights defender and leader of the Love Bo Nok group who fought for over ten years until his death against coal-fired power, large-scale shrimp farming, and other environmental destruction in Prachuap Khiri Khan. Porlajee Rakchongcharoen, known as "Billy", a Karen environmental activist, was reportedly arrested on 17 April 2014, in Kaeng Krachan National Park in Phetchaburi Province by a park superintendent and four other park officers. He was detained because he was found with a protected wild bee honeycomb and six bottles of honey. He has not been seen since. It is feared that he was murdered because of his activism. Billy's disappearance came three years after he assisted Karen villagers of Pong Luk Bang Kloy to file a lawsuit against the superintendent for ordering the eviction and burning of the village in May 2011. On 30 January 2017, Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) said that it would not investigate his disappearance, leaving it in the hands of the regular police despite three years of no progress in the