Thailand-Laos extradition treaty: an attempt to bypass the law?

 

 

Since the passing of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, the government has requested at least seven countries to extradite a total of 19 suspects accused of lèse majesté as the country still mourn for the late King. However, none of them has claimed it would. 

 

The Thailand-Laos extradition treaty was signed in 1999 and enforced in 2000. In 2002, members of a Lao resistance group raided a checkpoint along the border with Thailand to publicly claim their opposition to the communist government. Two years later, Thailand extradited to Laos prisoners from the Vangtao-Chongmek incident.

 

Even at this time, Thailand already showed its will to maintain relationships based on reciprocity with the neighbour by arresting members of a Lao resistance group and extraditing the prisoners to Laos. 

 

This event was seen as a will from Thailand to be able to request Laos to act in a similar way in the future. Indeed, such cooperation is carried out on the basis of principles of mutual cooperation but without compromising the laws of the Lao PDR. 

 

Bangkok Post reported that Thawip said "although Thailand and Laos do not have an official agreement to extradite suspects, we can proceed in terms of mutually beneficial cooperation. If Laos wants a criminal who violated the law in Laos and is hiding in Thailand, they may ask Thai officials to make an arrest and send that person back."

 

Indeed, both countries are not allowed to extradite people for political offences or crimes that do not exist in the resident country under the current 1999 extradition treaty. The Nation reported that although insulting the monarchy is not a crime in Laos, Thawip said he would make the request on a reciprocity basis. “If Laos wants any fugitives who fled prosecution to Thailand, we would arrest and hand them over in exchange [for Thai dissidents]”.

 

Thai authorities tend to abuse the lèse majesté law by applying it to political offences. Furthermore, Thai authorities request their neighbouring to extradite political offenders while it is written in Thai law that the country may refuse to extradite persons when the offense is strictly political by nature. 

 

The Nation argued that exploiting the monarchy’s high status in society, authorities enforce the lèse majesté as if the country were still ruled by an absolute monarchy.

 

Yet, Article 112 of the Thai Penal Code says “whoever, defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to 15 years”. Thus, from a legal perspective, the lèse majesté law only applied to offences committed against the monarchy, not against the government, hence the military. 

 

In other words, since Thailand lèse majesté law, as officially written, only applied to offences committed against the monarchy and since Laos does not recognise lese majeste as a crime, the extradition is legally forbidden. 

 

A similar case happened last October when the Hong Kong political activist Joshua Wong political activist was denied entry into Thailand and was arrested at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. Being one of the leaders of the Umbrella revolution in 2014, he was invited to give a speech at Chulalongkorn University in commemoration of 40th anniversary of the October 6 Thammasat massacre.

 

 

 

However, Thailand refused to let him enter the country on the ground that he was considered as a “threat to security”.  Bangkok-based security expert for PQA Associates, told TIME that the junta would have its own reasons to hold the young activist. The military regime, he said, "has no interest in a foreign student democracy leader coming here to speak to Thai students on the anniversary of the 1976 student massacre [and to] stir up talk about democracy among Thai students."

 

He was sent back to Hong Kong 12 hours later. 

 

After the 2014 coup d’état, many political dissidents wanted by the junta —most of whom are members of the anti-establishment red-shirt movement — fled to neighboring Laos. Half a dozen of them has been identified as producing and publicising criticism of the junta and the monarchy via the internet, especially via Youtube. 

 

The Associated Press reported that Maj Gen Kongcheep Tantrawanich, spokesperson of the Defence Ministry, said "They are not suspects, they are dangerous people."

 

"This is more of an exchange of prisoners between one country and another," he said. "They have some and we have some. We are exchanging information and we will see what we get out of it."

 

One week after the passing of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, telecommunications firms in the country were urged by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission - the kingdom’s broadcasting regulator - to spread instructions to customers to monitor and report any “inappropriate content about the royal institution” that they can observe through media platform such as Facebook or Youtube. 

 

“Faiyen Channel”, “Yammy Revolution” or even “Media Force” were part of the programmes spread by the red-shirt group. Last year, following requests from Thai authorities, Laos have urged Thai dissidents to remain silent and quiet while their country is mourning their beloved king. The Nation reported that some YouTube channels such as “Media Force” disappeared early last year, according to a viewer who closely monitors the dissident programmes.