The Cross Cultural Foundation has petitioned the House committee on Legal Affairs, Justice and Human Rights to investigate whether Thai officials were involved in the abduction and forced return of Vietnamese refugee Duong Van Thai.
Prakaidao Phurksakasemsuk, the foundation’s deputy director, said Thai, an independent Vietnamese journalist and human rights activist, fled to Thailand in 2018 and was granted refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 2020.
Although recognised as a refugee by the UNHCR in Bangkok, Thailand has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the country does not have a formal legal framework to protect refugees.
In 2023, Thai was abducted by four men near his rented home in Pathum Thani. Friends tried to contact him to no avail before discovering that he had been forcibly returned to Vietnam, where he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for spreading anti-government propaganda.
Ms Prakaidao described the abduction as an act of enforced disappearance and a violation of the non-refoulement principle, the international rule prohibiting the return of refugees to danger. She said the case might involve cross-border coordination between Thai and Vietnamese authorities.
Vietnamese-American human rights activist Grace Thu Trang Thi Bui also travelled to Thailand to seek information on the disappearance, noting that this was not the first such incident.
Chonthicha Jaengraew, People’s Party MP for Pathum Thani and a committee member, said failure to expose the truth of the case could harm Thailand’s image.