A Vietnamese human rights activist with refugee status in Thailand was arrested in Bangkok and now risks being deported to Vietnam, where he faces a 10-year prison sentence on terrorism charges.
Thai police arrested Y Quynh Bdap on June 11, according to his lawyer and rights activists. The arrest came exactly one year after dozens of people attacked two public agency headquarters in Vietnam’s Dak Lak province, in the Central Highlands, leaving nine dead.
Since then, scores of individuals have been tried and convicted in hearings that have been criticized as show trials. Y Quynh, who had left Vietnam in 2018, was sentenced in absentia to a decade in prison.
He has denied being involved in the attacks, calling the convictions politically motivated retaliation for his activism.
The area where the attacks took place is home to about 30 indigenous tribes who have a long history of conflict with the Vietnamese majority, and claim they have been discriminated against and persecuted.
They are often referred to as Montagnards, a term coined by French colonialists to describe the tribes, many of whom are Christians, but Vietnam has rejected use of the term.
Y Phic Hdok, who founded Montagnard Stand for Justice, or MSFJ, along with Y Quynh said he received a text message from Y Quynh on Tuesday reading: "I have been arrested."
A June 11 arrest warrant seen by RFA lists his arrest as a “warrant for extradited criminals” and notes he has been found guilty of acts of terrorism.
A Thai police official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media told RFA the activist would likely face trial for "overstaying" his visa.
Granted refugee status
Y Quynh left Vietnam in 2018 and sought asylum in Thailand, and was granted refugee status that same year by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. He has spent his time in Thailand collating rights abuses by the Vietnamese government for his MSFJ reports.
Because of his refugee status, Y Quynh has the right to resettle in a third country, and had applied for asylum in Canada. But his refugee card offers him little protection in Thailand, which has never ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention.
That has meant activists like Y Quynh can easily be picked up by Thai police on visa violations, and rights campaigners have accused Thailand of participating in transnational repression. A Human Rights Watch report issued last month noted Thailand facilitated forced returns and even abductions of refugees and dissidents.
His colleague, Y Phic, urged the Thai government to respect international human rights standards and reject Vietnam’s request to extradite Y Quynh.
“Because the UNHCR has recognized Y Quynh’s political refugee status, Thailand should have the obligation to protect his rights,” he said.
Officers from Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission met with Y Quynh on June 7 and sent a letter marked “most urgent” to the Immigration Bureau asking that he not be deported, given his refugee status and expected resettlement in Canada.
The letter cites Thailand’s anti-torture law, which prohibits extradition in cases where the deportee could face torture or forced disappearance.
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‘Hunting me down’
In a video Y Quynh filmed days before his arrest, published by several rights campaigners immediately following, the activist says that Vietnamese authorities “have been hunting me down” since late 2023 and accused the Thai police of aiding their pursuit.
“Out of fear for the safety of my family and myself, we have been in hiding for the past six months,” he says. “But on June 6, 2024, the Thai police found our location and have surrounded us since then.”
In March, RFA reported that Thai police had been visiting Vietnamese refugees from the Central Highlands, urging them to return home, and that they were asking for the whereabouts of Y Quynh.
"There is a worrying trend of Thailand deporting HRDs [human rights defenders] awaiting UNHCR resettlement to neighbouring countries to face unfair trial," Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights defenders wrote in a tweet about Y Quynh's case.
Several Thai immigration officials declined to speak with RFA.
As a registered refugee, Y Quynh would have been entitled to protection from the UNHCR, which on its website tells asylum seekers in Thailand it will "advocate for your right to non-refoulement to be respected."
It is unclear whether protection officers were present at his arrest, and the agency told RFA it would not comment on individual cases.
'Inexplicable'
A letter sent by his lawyer, Christopher MacLeod, to the UNHCR representative in Canada and Canada’s ambassador to Thailand, noted that Y Quynh attended an asylum claim interview at the Canadian Embassy one day before his arrest.
Afterwards, staff from the UN’s International Organization for Migration, or IOM, transported him “to a safe place to await Canada’s decision to grant him asylum.”
“It seems inexplicable that he could be arrested while under the protection of the UN,” MacLeod wrote.
Neither the IOM nor the Canadian UNHCR representative responded to requests for comment.
Since the attack first occurred, Vietnam has accused overseas groups of masterminding the attacks. In March, the Ministry of Public Security labeled Y Quynh's Montagnard Stand for Justice as one of two "terrorist organizations" that helped plan the attacks.
Y Quynh has long denied such charges. In an interview with RFA last year, he insisted the Vietnamese authorities had used the attack in Dak Lak to slander him for the purpose of "smearing my reputation and silencing my voice of human rights protection."
Rights groups have urged Thai authorities to release Y Quynh, arguing that there’s little to substantiate Vietnam’s allegations against him.
"The terrorism charges brought by the Vietnamese regime against Y Quynh Bdap are clearly baseless and trumped up and the Thai government must not be complicit in his refoulment, which is a violation of international law and standards," saidJosef Benedict, civil space research officer for global civil society alliance CIVICUS.
“This incident highlights a growing trend of transnational repression by Vietnam with activists and dissidents seeking refuge in Thailand facing arrests, harassment, surveillance and physical violence, often with the cooperation of Thai authorities.”
Phil Robertson, Director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates, said the activist would likely face violence in custody if forcibly returned to Vietnam.
"The Vietnamese government has a long, horrid track record of severely persecuting Montagnard political and religious activists, so there is a real fear that Y Quynh Bdap would face arrest, torture in custody and a long prison term if Thailand forced him back to Vietnam," he said.
Last year, Duong Van Thai, a Vietnamese blogger disappeared from the streets of Bangkok in an apparent kidnapping with Vietnamese authorities later saying he was in state custody. The case was similar to that of RFA contributor Truong Duy Nhat, who disappeared from Bangkok in 2019 and reemerged in a Hanoi prison.
Y Quynh expressed such a fear in the final video he recorded.
He beseeched the UN, NGOs and democratic governments to “please protect me. Don’t let them arrest and bring me back to Vietnam as in the cases of Truong Duy Nhat and Thai Van Duong.”
Additional reporting by Pimuk Rakkanam. Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Abby Seiff and Malcolm Foster.