Thailand has threatened to deny visas to activists attending a Vietnamese human rights conference amid “pressure” to cancel the event, a journalist group said yesterday.
Authorities said that while Thailand attached “great importance” to freedom of expression, it would not allow “activities detrimental to other countries,” according to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok.
The FCCT said Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi e-mailed the club asking it not to allow its premises to be used for the meeting — led by Vietnam Committee on Human Rights (VCHR) — scheduled for day.
It was asked to tell event organizers — an exiled Vietnamese rights group and long-time critic of Vietnam’s communist regime — “that it was Thailand’s intention to deny visas to the scheduled speakers,” the FCCT said.
A source close to the organizers said the event was now unlikely to take place at the FCCT as one speaker was delayed and the other may be subject to visa restrictions.
However, the group’s report on human rights abuses in Vietnam will be published as planned today.
Authorities in Thailand and Vietnam were not immediately available for comment and it is not clear what sparked the Thai government intervention.
Thani said the country had a “long-standing position” of prohibiting activities deemed “detrimental” to other states, in the e-mail received by the FCCT on Friday.
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