{"id":2340,"date":"2023-05-03T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/laos-brazen-shooting-of-human-rights-defender-jack-must-be-investigated-immediately\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T15:26:43","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T08:26:43","slug":"laos-brazen-shooting-of-human-rights-defender-jack-must-be-investigated-immediately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/blog\/2023\/05\/laos-brazen-shooting-of-human-rights-defender-jack-must-be-investigated-immediately\/","title":{"rendered":"Laos: Brazen shooting of human rights defender \u2018Jack\u2019 must be investigated immediately"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

*Amnesty has updated this statement from an earlier version as it has not been able to independently verify whether Jack was killed in the attack <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lao authorities must urgently launch an investigation into the attack on a human rights defender who was shot in a cafe over the weekend, Amnesty International said today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anousa \u201cJack\u201d Luangsouphom<\/strong>\u2019s social media posts about human rights issues in Laos amassed a large following. Believed to be 25 years old, he was shot by an unidentified person at a coffee shop in the Chanthabuly district of the Laos capital Vientiane on Saturday, 29 April. His current medical condition is unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cLao authorities must urgently launch a prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the brazen shooting of a young activist who dared to speak out about human rights issues in the country. No human rights defenders should be violently targeted for their work,\u201d<\/em> <\/span><\/span>said <\/span>Joe Freeman<\/strong>, Amnesty International\u2019s Interim Deputy Regional Director for Communications. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Jack has been a vocal critic of the Lao government and society. He ran two Facebook pages, \u201cDriven by the Keyboard\u201d and \u201cSor Tor Lor \u2013 the Republic\u201d. Both pages feature posts on a wide range of social, environmental, economic and political issues in Laos, such as haze pollution, the human rights of school children and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex (LGBTI) rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Footage of the shooting has been posted by Laophattana Daily News, a state-affiliated media outlet, and shared widely by social media users on Facebook and Twitter. As of 2 May, Lao authorities have not identified the perpetrator despite the available footage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Laos is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to life under its Article 6 and the right to freedom of expression under Article 19. But the government controls nearly all the media and has a history of repression against human rights defenders. <\/p>\n\n\n

\u201cThe international community and UN agencies must demand that Lao authorities ensure the full protection of human rights defenders,\u201d<\/em><\/span> <\/span>Amnesty\u2019s Joe Freeman said.  <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

Background: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jack is a prominent human rights defender in Laos. The \u201cDriven by the Keyboard\u201d Facebook page has more than 41,000 followers, whereas \u201cSor Tor Lor \u2013 the Republic\u201d has more than 6,800 followers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independent activism and human rights advocacy are extremely risky in Laos, and some cases involving attacks on human rights defenders have gone unsolved for years. On 15 December 2012, civil society leader Sombath Somphone was taken away in a truck by unknown persons after being stopped by police in Vientiane. He has not been seen or heard from since. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amnesty International also documented the arrest of three Lao human rights activists \u2014 Soukan Chaithad, Lodkham Thammavong and Somphone Phimmasone \u2014 in March 2016 after they participated in a peaceful demonstration outside the Lao embassy in Bangkok in December 2015.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They had also posted messages on Facebook criticizing the Laos government over its record on corruption, deforestation and human rights violations. The trio were sentenced to between 12 and 20 years in prison in a secret trial in April 2017. Following the verdict, Amnesty International called for an immediate and unconditional release of the activists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 29 August 2019, Od Sayavong, a former member of the \u201cFree Lao\u201d group, which works on human rights, corruption and environmental issues in Laos, disappeared in Bangkok. He was living in exile in Thailand after he met with the then-UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, on 15 March 2019, prior to Alston\u2019s visit to Laos. In September 2022, the UN Secretary-General indicated that Od\u2019s disappearance constituted an act of potential reprisal for his engagement with a UN human rights mechanism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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*Amnesty has updated this statement from an earlier version as it has not been able to independently verify whether Jack was killed in the attack  Lao authorities must urgently launch an investigation into the attack on a human rights defender who was shot in a cafe over the weekend, Amnesty International said today.  Anousa \u201cJack\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_yoast_wpseo_focuskw":"","_yoast_wpseo_title":"","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_opengraph-image-id":0,"_yoast_wpseo_twitter-title":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-description":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image":"","_yoast_wpseo_twitter-image-id":0,"_hero_title":"","_hero_content":"","_hero_cta_text":"","_hero_cta_link":"","_hero_alignment":"","_hero_background":"","_hero_size":"","_hero_show":"","_hero_type":"","_hero_embed":"","_hero_video_id":0,"_hero_hide_image_caption":true,"_hero_hide_image_copyright":false,"_nav_style":"","_disable_share_icons":false,"_disable_sidebar":false,"_display_author_info":false,"_hide_featured_image":false,"_hide_featured_image_caption":true,"_maximize_post_content":false,"_reduce_content_width":false,"_sidebar_id":0,"_stretch_thumbnail":false,"byline_context":"","byline_entity":"","byline_is_author":false,"disable_related_content":false,"download_id":0,"download_text":"","show_published_date":true,"show_updated_date":true,"term_slider":"","amnesty_index_number":"","recipients":"","recipients_refresh":"","recipients_refreshed":"","amnesty_umbraco_data":"","document_ref":"","amnesty_updated":"","footnotes":""},"category":[1584],"location":[1588,1587,1589],"resourceType":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","location-southeast-asia","location-thailand","location-world"],"datePosted":"May 3, 2023","mlpRelationships":{"1":3455,"2":2340},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/category?post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"resource-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resourceType?post=2340"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amnesty.or.th\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}