The man who attacked Pavin Chachavalpongpun was someone whom the Thai native and associate professor at Kyoto University didn’t know.
Appearing at the Kyoto District Court in May to deliver a statement, Pavin, 51, who is living in exile in Japan, asked the defendant sitting in front of him, “I don’t even know you. I want you to tell me who asked you to attack me, and what was the purpose?”
The culprit, 43, is an unemployed Japanese man. According to the indictment, the man broke into Pavin’s apartment in the city of Kyoto in the early hours of July 8, 2019, and injured him and his partner with tear gas while they were asleep. The man pleaded guilty to the charges of intrusion and causing injuries and was sentenced to one year and eight months in prison on June 8 this year.
However, whether someone else helped plot or orchestrate the attack was never uncovered. The defendant said his motive was that a "senior colleague had repeatedly asked” him to carry out the attack. He did not reveal the name or identity of his "senior colleague."
The prosecutor pointed out that this was an “organized crime,” but the truth remains in the dark.
An attack targeting a Thai national also took place in Paris in November 2019. Aum Neko, 28, was suddenly beaten by a group of men upon leaving a restaurant with an acquaintance. Three Czech nationals in their 20s were arrested and sentenced to prison terms in November 2021, but their roles and motives remain unclear.
Both Pavin and Aum are prominent dissidents who criticize the Thai monarchy and the military, which have influence over the increasingly authoritarian Thai regime. They are popular among young Thai people, as they have continued to criticize the regime even after they moved overseas around the time of the 2014 coup to escape arrest on charges of disrespect.
Thailand has demanded that Japan extradite Pavin, a former diplomat.
According to human rights groups, nine Thai activists have been killed or gone missing overseas since 2016. The Thai authorities deny any involvement.
“Such a coincidence is impossible. There must be intentions on the part of the government to silence us,” Pavin said.
Pavin ran into Aum while on a business trip to Paris at the end of June. Determined to continue their fight even after they became victims of attacks, Pavin posted a photo of them together on social media.
At the end of June, a statement from the Group of Seven summit in Germany brought up the term “transnational repression,” which has come into use in the West and broadly refers to attacks and threats against activists living in exile. “We commit to building resilience against malign foreign interference and acts of transnational repression that seek to ... silence critical voices,” the statement said.
Freedom House, a U.S. research institute, also released a report on transnational repression in June, which found 735 cases of such repression in 84 host countries between 2014 and 2021. Thailand was among the 36 origin countries where government involvements were suspected, with China topping the list with 229 cases, followed by countries such as Turkey, Tajikistan, and Russia.
Pavin calls his own case "the tip of the iceberg,” adding that transnational repression is also a violation of sovereignty of a host nation by authoritarian regimes. “I want people to know that Japan is also a stage for this.”
Global spread
The United States is perhaps the country that takes the global spread of transnational repression most seriously.
On July 1, the U.S. State Department sent a diplomatic notice on transnational repression to all foreign diplomatic missions in the U.S., condemning such activities as “attempts by a government to target individuals located outside of its territory for peacefully exercising their human rights and fundamental freedoms, through various forms of harassment, intimidation, and coercion.”
While not naming names, the letter was clearly targeting authoritarian regimes such as China and Russia and was sent to diplomatic missions because there have been cases of suspected involvement by embassy officials.
On the other hand, the notice also mentioned the privileges and virtual immunity status afforded to diplomats. The best the department could do was to state that it “views such acts of transnational repression as inconsistent with the traditional and accepted functions of diplomatic and consular missions.”
Furthermore, the methods of crossborder repression are extensive and sophisticated, making them difficult to defend and investigate.
This is evidenced by an incident that surfaced in the U.S. and China. In May, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted a U.S. citizen, believed to be of Chinese descent, on charges of espionage and transnational repression.
The defendant, a New York resident, was well known as an academic who was against the Chinese Communist Party regime. But he allegedly abused his reputation to gather information on activists in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Uyghur, and Tibetan ethnic groups, and sent the information to officials of China’s Ministry of State Security via a highly confidential application and other means.
It is said that one activist was later detained by Chinese authorities, but the Chinese government denied it, calling it “a fabrication.”
Involvements of a third country also make the matters complicated. In August 2021, two U.S.-based Myanmar nationals were arrested on suspicion of attempting to assassinate Myanmar's pro-democracy U.N. ambassador. A Thai arms dealer close to Myanmar’s military is believed to have been involved, but neither the Myanmar military government nor Thai authorities have moved to investigate the incident.
There has also been no progress in the investigation into the June 2020 disappearance of a male Thai dissident in Cambodia by either government. Separately, in 2015, Thailand deported about 100 Uyghurs who fled to the country at the request of China.
The common interests among authoritarian regimes to prioritize the containment of criticism over human rights appear to be fueling the activities of transnational repression and accelerating their spread.
Minimum security
Fears over transnational repression are also growing among Myanmar nationals living in Japan.
For example, the passport of a Myanmar student living in western Japan who supports the nation's pro-democracy movement is nearing its expiration date. The student fears renewing the passport because of recent reports from Myanmar media that have said passports submitted to embassies for renewal by pro-democractic citizens are not being returned.
The student, who has been posting criticism of the Myanmar military, says, “If I go to the embassy, not only will my passport be confiscated, but my information will be reported to the junta and my family may be put in danger.”
After the coup in February last year, the military government sent a letter to civil servants who are studying abroad, instructing them not to support the pro-democracy movements. If they do not comply, they are subject to hefty fines and have been warned that their families back home will be prosecuted. It is believed that there are various forms of transnational repression other than physical violence that are carried out undetected.
Takahiro Fujiwara, 41, associate professor at Kyushu University's Graduate School of Agriculture, has submitted a petition to the education ministry urging the government to ensure the safety of and offer protection for Myanmar students, but he has received only a muted response.
Fujiwara, who supports international students as a volunteer faculty member, said Japan is politically neutral and there is little awareness of the persecution and a will to support those in need. “Because of a lack of channels for consultation on cases of abuse, there is little understanding of the actual situation,” he said.
Japan is the only G7 country without a law that imposes sanctions on foreign officials involved in human rights abuses. The government and the parliament have only just begun to consider the issue, and there is no in-depth discussion on how to balance a tougher approach with Japan's conventional diplomatic tactics of maintaining dialogues even with authoritarian nations.
Pavin of Kyoto University said, after the 2019 attack, someone believed to be a Thai national posted photos of him and his home on social media in the autumn of 2020. Some of the photos were taken at close range from behind on the subway and at a convenience store. He consulted with police, but the details have never been discovered, and he lives in fear to this day.
Perhaps because Thailand is seeking his extradition, Pavin chooses his words carefully, saying, “I don’t want to be a matter of concern for the Japanese government.”
He feels that he has contributed to Japan in his own way by working as a researcher since coming to the country about 10 years ago.
“All I want is a minimum level of security, that’s all,” he said.
This section features topics and issues from the Kyushu region covered by the Nishinippon Shimbun, the largest daily newspaper in Kyushu. The original article was published July 16.
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