The Bangkok Legal Court docket ordered the extradition of a convicted political activist to Vietnam on Monday. Human rights teams, who criticized the transfer as “transnational repression”, warned that he possible faces threats to his life in Vietnam, which might render the extradition unlawful underneath the precept of non-refoulement.
Y Quynh Bdap is presently imprisoned in Thailand and has sought asylum on the Canadian embassy earlier than his detention. The activist was pressed with terrorist fees in absentia and is going through 10 years in jail. The decision was primarily based on his presence on the Dak Lak riots, wherein 9 individuals have been killed, together with 4 cops and two authorities officers. Subsequently, the federal government admitted partial accountability for the escalation of the state of affairs. The US Fee on Worldwide Non secular Freedom called the conviction “spurious” on X (previously Twitter.)
The UN particular rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterror Prof Ben Saul issued an amicus curiae temporary to the Thai court docket, concluding {that a} deportation of Y Quynh Bdap would violate worldwide legislation. Within the temporary, he begins by restating that the terrorist fees shouldn’t be abused to criminalize civil society or human rights activists. He goes on to argue that the extradition would violate the precept of non-refoulement underneath Worldwide Human rights legislation and Worldwide Refugee Legislation, as supplied by Article 7 of theInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 33 of the Refugee Convention. This precept, grounded in refugee legislation, prohibits the expulsion and return of individuals to a state the place their life or freedom is threatened. This precept applies to Y Quynh Bdap as he falls underneath the worldwide definition of a refugee, there is no such thing as a want for classification as such by the Thai authorities, based on Saul.
Rights teams, resembling Human Rights Watch, have been vital of Vietnam’s crackdown on dissent, in addition to ethnic minorities and spiritual freedom advocates in Vietnam.
In response to Bdap’s lawyer, the extradition order will not be utilized by way of a diplomatic choice by the Thai authorities.
Source / Picture: jurist.org
