Bangkok — A Thai court Monday approved the extradition of a human rights activist to his native Vietnam, where rights groups say he faces a high risk of torture and cannot be guaranteed a fair hearing from his country’s courts.
Y Quynh Bdap says he fled to Thailand in 2018 to evade arrest for his human rights work on behalf of the Montagnards, a predominantly Christian group of ethnic minorities who live in Vietnam’s central highlands. Thai police arrested him in Bangkok in June at Vietnam’s request.
Vietnam wants Bdap back for his alleged role in fomenting a riot last year that left nine people dead, including four police officers, according to state media. Bdap says he had nothing to do with the riot. A Vietnamese court convicted him on related terrorism charges in absentia in January and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Vietnam’s government has also labeled his group, Montagnards Stand for Justice, a terrorist organization.
Bdap’s lawyer, Nadthasiri Bergman, said the judge ignored Thailand’s anti-torture law, which forbids deporting people to countries where they may face torture, claiming it was up to the government — not the courts — to enforce.
The government has 90 days to decide whether to carry out the extradition request now that the court has approved it, unless Bdap and his lawyer appeal the verdict. Bergman said they would appeal, and that the 90 days would then begin only after the appeals process is over, should they lose again.
If Bdap is ultimately forced back to Vietnam, Bergman said her client would be at serious physical risk, adding that the threat had been corroborated by the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR.
Although Thailand does not legally recognize refugees, the UNHCR’s team in Thailand had granted Bdap one of its own refugee cards after assessing his claims.
“So long as he has [U.N.] refugee status, it means that he cannot go back to his home country, the country that he fled, because there is an existing and imminent threat to his life,” said Bergman.
A spokesperson for the Thai government could not be reached for comment.
Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Thailand, called Monday’s decision by the court “shocking and disappointing” for ignoring both the country’s international obligations and its own law against refoulement.
“Vietnamese authorities have a long record of mistreating political dissidents, especially those who are on the wanted list like Y Quynh Bdap. So, there are concerns that he will be mistreated in custody of Vietnamese authorities; that includes torture, that includes enforced disappearance,” he told VOA.
In May, Human Rights Watch published a detailed report alleging Thailand had made itself increasingly dangerous for foreign asylum-seekers over the past decade by engaging in an informal “swap mart” with its neighbors, forcibly returning each other’s dissidents regardless of whether they may be arrested, tortured or killed back home.
The passage of Thailand’s anti-torture law in 2022 raised hopes that the practice might wane.
Sunai, though, said Bdap’s case was the first major test of the law’s refoulement clause, and that Thailand had failed.
“Not only [does] the court decision today put the life of Y Quynh Bdap in danger; it also sets a very dangerous precedent,” he said. “Now, basically, repressive foreign governments can seek cooperation with Thai authorities to hunt down and extradite dissidents who live in exile in Thailand because Thailand cannot ensure their safety.”
He said countries backing Thailand’s current bid for a rotating seat on the U.N.’s Human Rights Council should use their support as leverage to urge the government not to follow through with Bdap’s extradition.
Several of the U.N.’s independent rights experts have also urged Thailand to reject Vietnam’s extradition request.
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