Koh Pha Ngan partygoers and organiser get a fine and suspended sentences
109 partygoers who attended a party at cliff-top bar on Koh Pha Ngan, including 89 foreigners and 22 Thais, have received suspended jail terms and fines for breaking Thailand’s emergency decree and Covid-19 restrictions. A judge sentenced each of the attendees to 1 month in jail, suspended if they have a good behaviour record for a year. He also fined them 4,000 baht each.
Police arrested most of the attendees in a raid Tuesday evening at the ThreeSixtyBar. Among the foreigners arrested were 20 French citizens, 10 Americans and 6 British citizens. Others were from Russia and Switzerland. Everyone was given a Covid-19 test by local health officials. So far all results have come back negative.
Koh Pha Ngan has been a popular destination in the past for backpackers, ‘wellness’ seekers, the hippie crowd and was famous for its monthly full moon party. But the Had Rin Beach monthly invasion has been cancelled since March 2020 although a core of international expats and tourists, some stuck in Thailand or waiting out the pandemic, have moved to the island for its relaxed tropical lifestyle. Thailand barred virtually all tourists from entering the country in April 2020 because of the coronavirus.
Koh Pha Ngan is a short boat ride from Koh Samui, located off the coast of Surat Thani province in the Gulf of Thailand.
Police said the raid was easy as the organisers did a lot of publicity (below) on social media for the Celebration 5 Bang party, where the bar promoted the event to celebrate its fifth year in business.
The court conducted the trial of the 109 people over a video conference call.
As for the Thai organiser and the 2 bartenders, they were given fines of 10,000 baht and a 2 year suspended jail sentence. The party’s organiser claimed he had made an “honest mistake”.
“I thought Surat Thani province was in the Covid-19 green zone…. I thought we were allowed to organise an activity.”
Thailand is currently graded in four zones – red, orange, yellow and green – depending on the number of cases in the current outbreak that has now spread around the country in the past 5 weeks, tripling the number of cases before December 20. Thailand has now registered 17,023 infections since January 2020, 802 new cases today and a total of 76 deaths.
SOURCE: AP
