Ahmed Jaffer Muhammad, a Bahraini critic of the government who fled to Serbia after government authorities tortured and ill-treated him, was extradited in January 2022 after Bahraini authorities issued a Red Notice through Interpol. Bahraini courts had sentenced him to life in prison following unfair, in absentia trials. In permitting the extradition, Serbia violated the principle of nonrefoulement, as Muhammed had previously been tortured and ill-treated while detained in Bahrain and risked
This memorandum provides an overview of Human Rights Watch’s main concerns with respect to the human rights situation in Cambodia, submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee in advance of its third periodic review of Cambodia at the Committee’s 134th session (February 28 to March 25, 2022). We hope it will inform the Human Rights Committee’s preparation for its upcoming review of the Cambodia’s compliance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (hereinafter “the Covenant”).
FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
A Thai dissident was kidnapped. When police had no answers, his sister began to investigate [Los Angeles Times :: THAI-DISSIDENT:LA]
SINGAPORE Sitanan Satsaksit kneeled outside her brother’s apartment building, her eyes lowered in prayer beneath a wide-brimmed hat. As she tried to reconstruct the events of that evening six months earlier, she heard his distressed voice in her head.
They had been chatting on the phone, she back in their native Thailand and he in his adopted home of Cambodia. An outspoken democracy activist and satirist, 38-year-old Wanchalearm Satsaksit was among more than 100 Thai dissidents who had fled into exile following a 2014 military coup.
SINGAPORE
Sitanan Satsaksit kneeled outside her brother’s apartment building, her eyes lowered in prayer beneath a wide-brimmed hat. As she tried to reconstruct the events of that evening six months earlier, she heard his distressed voice in her head.
They had been chatting on the phone, she back in their native Thailand and he in his adopted home of Cambodia. An outspoken democracy activist and satirist, 38-year-old Wanchalearm Satsaksit was among more than 100 Thai dissidents who had fled into exile following a 2014 military coup.
He told her he was buying meatballs outside his high-rise in Phnom Penh, the capital, when she heard a commotion, a series of bangs and shouts. Then came his plaintive cry, repeated again and again: “I can’t breathe.”
Photo: RFA
A Cambodian fixer for Russian state-owned TV network Russia Today (RT) was released from prison Friday after completing his two-year term and paying 70 million riels (U.S. $17,200) in fines for “incitement,” although his case remains up in the air pending an appeal.
Rath Rott Mony fled Cambodia for Thailand to seek asylum after helping a visiting crew from RT to make a documentary about child prostitution in the country that was broadcast in October 2018. He was arrested by Thai police two months later and handed back to Cambodian authorities.
After a six-month investigation, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court ordered Rath Rott Mony jailed for two years and fined him 35 million riels (U.S. $8,600) each to plaintiffs Keo Malai and Tep Sreylin, who said he had promised to help them solve a land dispute and open a shop if they made up stories about forcing their daughters into prostitution for the documentary, entitled “My Mother Sold Me.”