Human rights group blasts Thailand's forced return of Lao refugee

Dec 22, 2011, 9:46 GMT

Bangkok - Human Rights Watch blasted Thailand Thursday for forcibly repatriating a Hmong refugee to Laos last week in violation of international law.

Thai authorities handed over Ka Yang, a registered refugee with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok, to Lao officials December 17 on the Thai-Lao border, the New-York based human rights group said and UN officials confirmed.

Ka Yang - a member of the Hmong ethnic minority group, who was recruited by the US military in large numbers to fight communist forces in the Indo-China war - was previously deported to Laos in 2009 but escaped and returned this year to Thailand, where he and his family were detained.

He had been accepted for resettlement to the United States in 2009, but Thai authorities had included him in a mass deportation of Hmong that year.

'The Thai government has shown callous disregard for the most basic right of refugees not to be returned to face persecution,' said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

'By twice returning Ka Yang to Laos, which has long mistreated its Hmong population, Thailand is saying it cares little about protecting refugees and respecting their basic rights,' he charged.

The UN refugee agency's Bangkok office on Friday sent the Thai government a letter to protest Ka Yang's repatriation and had previously protested his arrest, agency spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey said.

'We did everything we could to try to protect him,' McKinsey said.

Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said the ministry was 'looking into the case.'

Ka Yang was among 157 Hmong refugees who were detained at the Nong Khai immigration centre on the Thai-Lao border for years before their deportation in late 2009.

The Hmong claim to be the target of ongoing government persecution since 1975 when Laos fell to the communists.

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