This article by Sebastian Strangio is published by The Diplomat. Here is an excerpt:

Thai authorities yesterday released on bail an exiled Lao political activist and asylum seeker who was arrested over the weekend for overstaying his visa. Khoukham Keomanivong, a member of the pro-democracy Free Lao group, was arrested on Saturday and threatened with deportation to Laos, from which he fled in 2019.

According to media reports, Khoukham was apprehended despite holding a card from the UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, prompting concerns from rights activists about his safety were he to be forcibly repatriated to the one-party communist state.

“This person is clearly a recognized refugee. Being sent back to Laos would be a violation to human rights in the most severe kind,” Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director for the rights group Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.

Read the full story here.