Unknown gunmen abducted a Thai political activist in Cambodia, a human rights group said yesterday, in the latest in a series of mysterious disappearances of Southeast Asian dissidents living in exile.
Wanchalearm Satsaksit, 37, was kidnapped at gunpoint and bundled into a vehicle as he walked on a street in front of his apartment in the capital, Phnom Penh, on Thursday, New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
“The abduction of a prominent Thai political activist on the streets of Phnom Penh demands an immediate response from Cambodian authorities,” Human Rights Watch Asia director Brad Adams said.
A Cambodian National Police spokesman told reporters that authorities had not detained or arrested the activist and there was not enough information for police to open an investigation.
Wanchalearm fled from Thailand after a 2014 military coup. He had been summoned by military authorities before he left.
He kept up his political activity in exile and Thai authorities in 2018 issued an arrest warrant for him for breaching a computer crime act by operating a Facebook page critical of the military government.
On Wednesday, he criticized Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on social media.
A 2015 Thai media report citing a security source said that Wanchalearm was among 29 exiled activists accused of breaching a lese majeste law that makes it a crime to defame, insult or threaten the monarchy.
At least eight Thai activists who fled after the 2014 coup and took refuge in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam have disappeared, associates and rights groups have said, with some found dead.
The hashtag #SaveWanchalearm was yesterday trending on Twitter in Thailand, with more than 400,000 retweets, and some activists planned a demonstration later in the day.
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