MALAYSIA’S deportation of a Thai woman wanted in her home country for anti-monarchy views violates its international legal obligations to protect asylum seekers from the risk of persecution, said Human Rights Watch (HRW).

Praphan Pipithnamporn, registered as an asylum seeker by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), was placed in “grave risk of arbitrary detention and unjust prosecution” after she was repatriated on May 10, said HRW Asia director Brad Adams.

“Malaysian authorities have an obligation to protect asylum seekers like Praphan from being forcibly returned to the risk of being persecuted for their peaceful political views,” he said in a statement today.

Praphan was arrested last month at the request of Thai authorities.

Prior to fleeing to Malaysia, she had been reportedly arrested several times between September and December last year over the activities of her Organisation for Thai Federation, an anti-monarchy group.

She had said threats against her intensified after she participated in peaceful anti-monarchy activities during a birthday memorial for the late Thai King Rama IX on December 5, according to HRW.

Praphan fled to Malaysia in January and applied for refugee status with UNHCR in Kuala Lumpur. On April 2, the refugee agency registered her claim as an asylum seeker, and designated her as a “person of concern”.

“Under customary international law, Malaysia is obligated to ensure that no one is forcibly sent to a place where they are at risk of being subjected to persecution, torture or other serious human rights violations,” said the HRW statement.

“Neighbouring countries should not contribute to Thailand’s increasingly dire human rights situation by sending asylum seekers into harm’s way.”

Praphan’s deportation came a month after four critics of the Egyptian junta were repatriated.

HRW said Mohamed Fathy Eid, Abdallah Mahmoud Hisham, Abdelrahman Abdelaziz Ahmed and Azmy al-Sayed Mohamed have gone missing, fuelling fears that they have been arrested and tortured. – May 14, 2019.