Vietnam thanks Thailand for blocking rights activists

Sep 15, 2010, 6:12 GMT

Hanoi - The Vietnamese government on Wednesday thanked Thailand for preventing two activists from travelling to Bangkok to present a report on human rights in Vietnam.

Vo Van Ai and Penelope Faulkner of the Paris-based Vietnam Committee for Human Rights had planned a press conference Monday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand but were blocked from flying to Bangkok by Thai officials in Paris. The activists said the Thai embassy told them Vietnam had requested the move.

'Vietnam welcomes Thailand's refusal to allow Thai territory to be used for activities opposing Vietnam,' government spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said.

She said the action was appropriate to the 'friendly and cooperative relations between Vietnam and Thailand,' and to the charter of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Thailand has long been an outpost of relative freedom for press and human rights activists in South-East Asia, where many countries have more restrictive policies.

'This is the first instance I can recall where Thailand has quite publicly revoked visas to anti-regime political activists from another ASEAN country at the request of that country,' Vietnam expert Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Academy said.

In a letter dated Sunday to the press club, Thailand's Foreign Ministry objected to holding the launch of the Vietnamese human rights report there.

Ministry spokesman Thani Thongpakdi told the club the government had 'a long-standing position of not allowing organizations and/or persons to use Thailand as a place to conduct activities detrimental to other countries.'