Rights groups urge Thailand to release Vietnamese activist, saying he faces torture if extradited

BANGKOK (AP) — A group of nearly three dozen rights groups called on Thailand’s prime minister Friday to release a Vietnamese activist who has been ordered extradited home to face imprisonment on terrorism charges, saying he faces the possibility of torture if returned.

Y Quynh Bdap, who has United Nations refugee status in Thailand, was picked up by Thai authorities on a Vietnamese warrant in June as he was seeking to be granted asylum in Canada and is being held in Bangkok pending extradition.

In the letter sent to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra well as other Thai officials and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Amnesty International and 32 other rights groups suggested Bdap “faces a real risk of torture, prolonged arbitrary detention or other grave human rights violations” if he is returned to Vietnam.

Paetongtarn’s spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub said the prime minister’s office had not yet received the letter and that he had no immediate comment.

Bdap is the co-founder of the Montagnards Stand for Justice group. He fled to Thailand in 2018 to escape persecution in Vietnam, which has been long criticized for its treatment of the country’s predominantly Christian Montagnard minority.

His group advocated for Montagnards’ religious and other rights, training them in international and Vietnamese law and how to document abuses, which the NGOs said made him a target of the Vietnamese government.

The 32-year-old was convicted in absentia in Vietnam in January of terrorism and sentenced to 10 years in prison on allegations that he was involved in organizing anti-government riots in Vietnam’s central highland province of Dak Lak last year.

A Bangkok court in September ordered his extradition, and his