Vietnamese Accused of Kidnapping Critical Blogger Who Fled to Thailand

 

Rob Wilson - The Bobr Times

April 22, 2023

 

 

The human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Friday accused Vietnam of kidnapping a blogger in Thailand critical of the Vietnamese regime and living under refugee status. 

Thai Van Duong, who fled to the kingdom in 2019 to escape Vietnamese authorities and was later granted refugee status, disappeared last week.

According to Vietnamese state media, the 41-year-old is in custody in Vietnam after he was arrested for “illegally entering” the country through an unofficial border crossing near Laos on April 14.

The HRW does not believe this version and has asked the Thai authorities to conduct an investigation.

“Vietnamese state agents abducted Thai Van Duong, a UNHCR-recognized refugee, from the street near his residence in Pathum Thani province, just outside Bangkok,” said Phil Robertson, director deputy for Asia, during a conference in Bangkok.

Thai Van Duong “would never have returned (voluntarily) to Vietnam”, affirmed Grace Bui, a friend of the blogger and former person in charge for another NGO project 88.

Mr. Duong regularly posted videos on YouTube critical of the Vietnamese communist regime, accusing it of corruption.

According to state media, he ran a Facebook group that published “distorted information” about the private lives of Vietnamese leaders.

Ms Bui said she received a call on April 13 telling her of the disappearance of his friend.

Witnesses then told him that they had seen two white sedans blocking his motorcycle, one from the front and the other from behind.

“They came during Songkran (the Thai New Year), when everyone was on vacation and all the shops were closed,” she said, adding that Thai Van Duong had told her several times since 2021 that he felt unsafe. .

Thai police told AFP they contacted Vietnamese authorities, but received no information.

Vietnamese Foreign Ministry did not respond in immediately to a request for comment.

In 2018, in Germany, a Vietnamese was sentenced to 4 years in prison for having participated in a kidnapping, on orders from Hanoi, in a Berlin park.

Two Vietnamese diplomats were also expelled.