Thai court grants Vietnam’s request for activist’s extradition

A Thai court ruled on Monday that Montagnard activist Y Quynh Bdap should be sent back to Vietnam where he faces terrorism charges.

The judge at the Bangkok Criminal Court said there were sufficient grounds to approve the Vietnamese government’s extradition request. Thailand’s government will have the final say on the fate of the human rights activist who said he fears he will be tortured, or even killed, if sent back.

“It is up to the government to execute the extradition in 90 days regardless of the court ruling,” the judge told the court.

Bdap has 30 days to appeal the case and if he has not been extradited within 90 days he must be set free, she said.

Dressed in a brown prison uniform, 32-year-old Bdap remained calm when the verdict was delivered. He was sent back to the Bangkok Remand Prison, where he has been held since his arrest on June 11.

RELATED STORIES

EXPLAINED: Who are Vietnam’s Montagnards

Montagnard activists tells Thai court he has no terrorist links

UN experts challenge Vietnam’s treatment of Montagnard minority

Bdap is an ethnic Ede, one of about 30 minority groups in Vietnam’s Central Highlands who were called Montagnards, or hill people, by French colonialists. 

The mainly-Christian people say they have faced years of discrimination over religion and land rights. Vietnam rejects accusations of rights abuses against the community.

A Vietnamese court charged Bdap with terrorism in January this year in connection with a June 2023 attack on two government offices in Dak Lak province, in which nine people were killed. 

It sentenced him in absentia to 10 years in prison but Bdap denied involvement in the agitation and violence, which occurred when he was in Thailand.

Bdap, who co-founded a group called Montagnards Stand for Justice to fight discrimination, has lived with his family in Thailand since 2018.

Thai government to decide

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recognized him as a refugee even though Thailand has not ratified the 1951 convention on refugees, which outlines the legal protection, rights and assistance a refugee is entitled to receive.

Bdap is determined to fight extradition, according to his lawyer Nadthasiri Bergman.

“We are disappointed with the verdict. We are working on the appeal,” Bergman said.

Any extradition must be approved by the Thai government after the appeal court issues its verdict, she added.

“I hope the government and the prime minister will make an executive order not to extradite him,” she said.

The case has shone a spotlight on Thailand’s stand on human rights and on what rights groups say is an increasing tendency for countries in the region to crack down on foreign dissidents seeking refuge.

“It would appear that under considerable international pressure the court did not want to take the responsibility to extradite Y Quynh Bdap,” Andrea Giorgetta of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) told Radio Free Asia.

“The ball is now in the Thai government’s court and it is imperative that the Thai authorities comply with their national and international human rights obligations and allow Y Quynh Bdap to go free and resettle in a third country.”

Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates Director Phil Robertson denounced the court’s ruling as “appalling and outrageous.”

“The Thai court … fundamentally failed to understand that Y Quynh BDap will certainly face torture if he's forced back to Vietnam. The court also ignored the wholly bogus and rigged nature of the original Vietnamese court verdict against him,” Robertson said.

Radio Free Asia is an online news service affiliated with BenarNews.