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FCCTProgramShutDown

26 JUNE 2015 - BANGKOK, THAILAND: Thai police in the lobby of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand after they cancelled the release of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, “Persecuting ‘Evil Way’ Religion: Abuses against Montagnards in Vietnam”, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok Friday morning. The report made no mention of the human rights situation in Thailand. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) contacted HRW Thursday afternoon and asked them to cancel the program because it was a “sensitive” matter that could impact on Thai-Vietnam relations. HRW told the MFA that they would go ahead with the report's release. Friday morning, before the report was scheduled to be released, Thai police officers arrived at the FCCT and cancelled the event. Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said, "By stepping in to defend a neighboring state’s human rights violations against a group of its people and interrupting a scheduled press conference, Thailand’s military junta is violating freedom of assembly and demonstrating its contempt for freedom of the press." PHOTO BY JACK KURTZ

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FCCTProgramShutDown005.jpg
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© 2015 Jack Kurtz
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4608x3456 / 7.8MB
Contained in galleries
Martial Law and the Coup 2014 (All), Thailand (All)
26 JUNE 2015 - BANGKOK, THAILAND: Thai police in the lobby of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand after they cancelled the release of a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, “Persecuting ‘Evil Way’ Religion: Abuses against Montagnards in Vietnam”, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok Friday morning. The report made no mention of the human rights situation in Thailand. The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) contacted HRW Thursday afternoon and asked them to cancel the program because it was a “sensitive” matter that could impact on Thai-Vietnam relations. HRW told the MFA that they would go ahead with the report's release. Friday morning, before the report was scheduled to be released, Thai police officers arrived at the FCCT and cancelled the event. Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, said, "By stepping in to defend a neighboring state’s human rights violations against a group of its people and interrupting a scheduled press conference, Thailand’s military junta is violating freedom of assembly and demonstrating its contempt for freedom of the press." PHOTO BY JACK KURTZ
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