Vietnamese monk Thich Tri Luc’s disappearance in Cambodia last month has shocked human rights workers, but the religious dissident’s case follows a long string of alleged forced deportations arranged between the Cambodian and Vietnamese governments.
After fleeing Vietnam, Thich Tri Luc was staying in a Phnom Penh guest house until July 25, when he went missing after going to meet an unknown man for coffee, Buddhist officials claim.
“He may have been kidnapped, repatriated, or suffered an even worse fate,” the Paris-based International Buddhist Information Bureau said in a statement Friday.
Thich Tri Luc is a well-known member of the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam and has been jailed in the past by Vietnamese authorities.
“It’s the habitual approach to get these guys out. It’s been going on for awhile,” said one human rights worker in Phnom Penh.
It is known that several members of the anti-Hanoi Free Vietnam movement have been arrested in Cambodia and reportedly sent back to Vietnam, despite the Cambodian government’s efforts to do so quietly.
More recently, rights workers have accused Cambodian authorities of arresting and forcibly deporting as many as 550 Montagnard asylum seekers fleeing unrest in Vietnam’s Central Highlands. But Thich Tri Luc’s case is even more “outrageous,” in the words of one observer, because the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had granted the monk refugee status and the almost certain prospect of resettlement before he went missing.
The UNHCR has refused to comment on the case. But international organizations, including Human Rights Watch, are pressing for a full investigation.
“There is urgent concern for the safety of Thich Tri Luc. He is at serious risk of being deported to Vietnam, where he is at great risk of persecution and imprisonment,” said Mike Jendrzejczyk, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch Asia.
