The new fatal shooting of a Thai rebel in Thailand, combined with possible persecution of Uyghur migrants has once again shone a light on Bangkok’s failure to protect dissenters and political refugees.
Past Thai senator Lim Kimya was gunned down on January 7 in Thailand’s money. He had just arrived in Bangkok before that day on a vehicle from Cambodia.
Individually, there are reviews of the Thai government preparing to take 48 Tamils who have been detained in Bangkok for over a century ago to China.
” Both Lim Kimya’s dying and the current position of the Tamils show that (… ) Thailand is not a safe location for migrants,” Patrick Phongsathorn, a top advocacy expert for Fortify Rights, told DW.
Deporting Tamils against foreign law
The death of Lim Kimya and the alleged arrests are only the latest in the long series of aggressive or constitutionally questionable incidents concerning refugees in Thailand.
In November 2024, Thai authorities violently returned six opposition campaigners to Cambodia to face crime claims, despite them having a UN-recognized refugee status.
In mid-2024, Bangkok also arrested Y Quynh Bdap, a Vietnamese racial minority rights advocate, following an extradition request from Hanoi.
A month earlier, Bounsuan Kitiyano, an exiled Chinese political advocate who also had UN refugee position, was killed in Thailand’s northern Ubon Ratchathani state.
Thai officials have likewise deported Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim ethnic group in China’s northern province of Xinjiang that has faced oppression by Beijing. In 2015, Thailand repatriated 109 Uyghur prisoners to China — a selection that was commonly condemned.
The latest studies concentrate on the reported repatriation of 48 more individuals who had remained in Thailand’s jails.
Phongsathorn says sending the group up to China would become illegal.
” The state would not only be breaking international law but also its unique anti-torture policy, which protects individuals from being deported to places where they face abuse or oppression,” Phongsathorn said.
No security in Southeast Asia
Different countries in the region seem to follow the same pattern. In an internet to DW, Amnesty International said it has also “observed the disturbing escalation of international suppression” in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.
” Protesters, human rights defenders, and political dissidents who fled their home countries in hopes of a safe shelter ended up facing violence, enforced disappearance, deaths, and forced returns to areas where they could experience human rights violations,” said Chanatip Tatiyakaroonwong, Amnesty International’s Thailand and Laos scholar.
For example, Thai human rights activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit disappeared in Cambodia in 2020. A year earlier, three Thai activists, Chucheep Chiwasut, Siam Theerawut, and Kritsana Tupthai, went missing after reportedly being arrested in Vietnam. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
In late 2018, the bodies of two anti-royalist Thai activists, Chatcharn Buppawan and Kraidej Luelert, were found stuffed with concrete on the banks of the Mekong River.
Amnesty’s Chanathip said” the identities of perpetrators remain unknown” in most cases, “despite the strong suspicion of state involvement given that the victims were all critics and dissidents. “
Police say Lim Kimya’s killing not political
Following the shooting of Lim Kimya in Bangkok, Thai Police Commissioner Pol Gen Kitrat Phanphet said the crime was” not politically motivated but stems from personal conflicts. ” Kitrat did not say how the police reached that conclusion.
But Cambodian politician Sam Rainsy pointed the finger at the veteran ruler of Cambodia, Hun Sen, saying the ex-dictator was behind the killing.
” Several dozen members of the opposition have been coldly assassinated,” Rainsy said in an online post, adding he also faced multiple attempts on his life.
On the day Lim Kimya was shot dead — which coincided with the anniversary of the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime — former prime minister Hun Sen, who in 2023 handed power to his son Hun Manet, called for a new law to label those attempting to topple his son’s government as “terrorists. “
Close ties between Bangkok and Phnom Penh alarm activists
Lim Kimya’s case is “part of a long-standing and unchanging mistreatment” that exiles and asylum seekers suffer in Thailand, Tyrell Haberkorn, a professor of Southeast Asian studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told DW.
” What enables this to take place with impunity is an unwillingness to investigate or hold perpetrators to account,” said Haberkorn.
The governments of Thailand and Cambodia enjoy especially close ties. A 2024 report by Human Rights Watch attributed” the intimidation and harassment, surveillance, and physical violence” that Cambodian dissidents in Thailand face to HunSen’s ties with former Thai Prime Minister Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha.
In the aftermath of the Lim Kimya killing, Thai authorities need to determine “whether there was collusion between elements of the Thai and the Cambodian political establishments, ” Phongsathorn told DW.
Will Thailand become safer by joining UNHRC?
Despite its apparent failures in protecting dissidents, Thailand won its bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council ( UNHRC ) last year. Its membership started on January 1 and is set to last three years.
” Thailand’s human rights performance will be under increased scrutiny, and the Thai state and government will be held to a higher standard as a member of the UNHRC,” said Phongsathorn.
However, it remains unclear how this would affect the alleged agreements with other governments “regarding transnational repression,” Phongsathorn added.
While the UNHRC does not obligate its members to take any specific actions, the Thai government” should use its membership term as an opportunity to take leadership in enhancing the rights of refugees and asylum seekers, both in Thailand and across the region,” said Chanatip.
