Submission to the Universal Periodic Review of Laos

Introduction

Human Rights Watch submits the following information regarding the human rights record of Laos since its 2020 Universal Periodic Review (UPR). It is not a complete review of the recommendations supported by Laos during the last UPR cycle, nor is it a comprehensive assessment of Laos’s protection of human rights.

The single-party, authoritarian government of Laos systematically restricts fundamental civil and political rights, including freedom of speech, association, and peaceful assembly. Since the last UPR cycle, it has continued to commit violations against activists and political dissidents and has failed to make progress on most of the 160 recommendations it supported in 2020.[1] Notably, it has yet to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which it signed in 2008, despite having accepted recommendations urging it to ratify the convention in all three prior UPR cycles.[2]

Transnational Repression

The term “transnational repression,” sometimes referred to as extra-territorial repression, describes efforts by governments or their agents to silence or deter dissent by committing human rights abuses against their own nationals or members of the country’s diaspora outside their territorial jurisdiction. Human Rights Watch has documented several cases over the past decade that suggest the Lao government has engaged in quid-pro-quo agreements with neighboring countries about dissidents and critics, colloquially known in the region as “swap mart” arrangements.[3]

Often, targets of transnational repression are Lao dissidents who have sought safety in neighboring Thailand. Human Rights Watch has documented two cases of transnational repression involving Laos since the last UPR cycle, one affecting a Lao national in Thailand and one affecting a Chinese national in Laos.[4]

On May 17, 2023, unidentified assailants shot and killed the exiled Free Lao movement political activist Bounsuan Kitiyano in Si Mueang Mai district of Ubon Ratchathani province in northeastern Thailand, near the Laos border.[5] The local police investigation indicated that he was shot multiple times while riding alone on his motorcycle on a rural road. A Thai military intelligence official told Human Rights Watch that it was “clearly a professional killing” and ridiculed local police speculation that Bounsuan was killed by relatives unhappy with his political activities. According to media reports, Bounsuan was a recognized refugee by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and was in the process of applying for resettlement in Australia.

The Lao government has not investigated and prosecuted those responsible for other reported cases of transnational repression since the last UPR cycle, including the enforced disappearance of another Free Lao activist refugee, Od Sayavong, who disappeared in Bangkok in August 2019.[6]

The government failed to implement the UPR 2020 recommendation to “ensure that refugees and asylum seekers are protected, and any attacks on them are subject to prompt, thorough and independent investigation.”[7]

Thai dissidents and critics who fled to Laos have also been targets of transnational repression. The government of Laos has not conducted impartial investigations into the killings of Thai activists Danwattananusorn, Chatcharn Buppawan, and Kraidej Luelert in December 2018, nor the abductions of Wuthipong Kachathamakul in July 2017, and Itthipol Sukpaen in June 2016.[8]

In September 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders raised concerns about abuses, including extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, committed against eight activists in Laos.[9]

In September 2023, Laos deported prominent Chinese lawyer and human rights defender Lu Siwei to China, where he is at risk of inhumane treatment and torture by the Chinese authorities, in violation of international law regarding refoulement.[10] He had been en route to the United States to join his family. Lu remains under constant surveillance with strict restrictions on movement after his release on bail pending trial despite calls for his release from UN experts, including Mary Lawlor, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.[11] His forced return, in light of the Chinese government’s longstanding practice of pressuring other governments to forcibly return human rights defenders and others critical of the government and the Chinese Communist Party, raises concerns that the Lao government may have succumbed to Chinese pressure.

Recommendations:

• Do not facilitate or be complicit in transnational repression by other governments.
• Thoroughly and impartially investigate allegations of harassment, intimidation, threats, surveillance, and forced returns from Laos by foreign governments or their agents against dissidents and critics of neighboring countries in Laos and the role of Lao officials in those actions, promptly issue findings, and appropriately discipline or prosecute those responsible, regardless of position or rank.
• Thoroughly and transparently investigate allegations of harassment, intimidation, threats, surveillance, and forced returns by Lao authorities against exiled Lao nationals in Southeast Asia or elsewhere, promptly issue findings, and appropriately discipline or prosecute those responsible, regardless of position or rank.
• End the practice by Lao officials of forcibly returning refugees or asylum seekers in violation of the principle of non-refoulement, and hold those who had ordered and carried out such transfers accountable.
• Fully and impartially investigate, in cooperation with the government of Thailand, the enforced disappearance of Free Lao human rights and migrant worker activist Od Sayavong in Bangkok in August 2019, and make public the results of the investigation.
• Fully and impartially investigate the disappearance of prominent Thai activist Surachai Danwattananusorn, and the killing of his two assistants Chatcharn Buppawan and Kraidej Luelert, in December 2018, and the disappearances of Thai anti-monarchists Ittiphol Sukpaen and Wuthipong Kachathamakul in June 2016 and July 2017, respectively, and publicly report on the findings.

Enforced Disappearances and Attacks on Critics

Laos is bound under international human rights law to prevent and remedy enforced disappearances. However, it continues to deny allegations that it has abducted activists and political dissidents. Enforced disappearances violate a range of fundamental human rights protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Laos has ratified, including prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and extrajudicial executions. But no progress has been made on the known cases of enforced disappearances in Laos.[12]

Laos did not accept recommendations in its last UPR cycle that called on it to “investigate cases of enforced disappearances and hold perpetrators to account.”[13]

December 2024 marks the 12-year anniversary of the enforced disappearance of Lao civil society leader Sombath Somphone, who was last seen at a police checkpoint on a busy street of Vientiane.[14] CCTV footage showed that police stopped Sombath’s vehicle at the checkpoint and that, within minutes, unidentified individuals forced him into another vehicle and drove him away in the presence of police officers.

This case received widespread international attention and is considered representative of Laos’s broader history of impunity for its rights abuses. Yet, the government repeated misleading statements and failed to provide information on the steps it had taken to find Sombath in a submission to the UN Human Rights Committee as part of its follow-up review of Laos under the ICCPR in September 2023.[15] The Lao authorities have continued to disregard Sombath’s wife, Shui Meng Ng, and have not provided her with any updates on her husband’s case since 2017. Instead, the authorities falsely reported that its Task Force investigation had been “carried out on the basis of transparency, impartiality and accountability, including the use of modern investigative techniques consistent with international standards by the capable inquiry officials.” It concluded that Sombath’s case needed “more time for investigation.” As of 2024, the case remains open. However, evidence indicates that the Lao government has been obscuring facts about Sombath’s abduction since his disappearance in 2012, thus ignoring its international legal obligations to investigate the incident and provide information and reparations to Sombath’s family.

Laos did not support any of the five recommendations in its last UPR cycle that urged it to undertake an investigation into Sombath’s disappearance.[16]

On April 29, 2023, an unidentified gunman shot prominent political activist Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom in Vientiane. He was the administrator of the Kub Kluen Duay Keyboard (literally, “Driven By Keyboard”) Facebook page, a platform for people to express dissenting views about the Lao government, particularly as they relate to corruption and repression of fundamental freedoms.[17] Lao authorities have yet to announce an investigation into Anousa’s shooting despite reports by government-affiliated media on the case.[18]

On April 20, 2023, Lao police authorities from an unidentified unit arrested and detained Savang Phaleuth, another Free Lao member.[19] Free Lao is a human rights group that, like many other civil society organizations critical of the government, has faced surveillance and intimidation from the Lao authorities.

Recommendations:

• Fully and impartially investigate the enforced disappearance of Sombath Somphone in December 2012, and disclose his fate or whereabouts.
• Fully and impartially investigate the attack on Anousa “Jack” Luangsuphom in April 2023, make public the results of the investigation, and hold those responsible to account.
• Ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which Vientiane signed in 2008 but not ratified, and bring national laws and regulations into compliance with that convention.