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šØ HUMAN RIGHTS ALERT šØ Will Thailand send journalist Bai Zhaodong back to China āļø
#StopTransnationalRepression | Bai Zhaodong, a 56-year-old Chinese investigative journalist and UNHCR-recognised refugee, has been unlawfully detained in Bangkok since January 2026. On 9 October, a Thai court will rule on the legality of his detention while China pursues his extradition. If he is forcibly returned, Bai risks grave threats to his life!
š° Who is Bai?
He has worked for more than two decades as an investigative journalist in China, most recently for Caijing magazine. His reporting exposed a corruption and financial fraud network involving local officials and senior Chinese Communist Party officials. Between 2011 and 2022, at least five charges were brought against him by different authorities over his reporting.
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Bai argues these charges came from public security departments across China in response to his reporting on fraud and corruption scandals. He was also accused of "inciting subversion of state power", which carries up to five years in prison, and a minimum of five years if Chinese courts classify it as a major crime. In September 2024, the Public Security Bureau of Yulin City issued an arrest warrant against him for extortion. He fled China in 2023 and reached Thailand in 2024.
š« Blocked from safety:Ā A third country has already approved Bai's resettlement. Yet Thai authorities stopped him from leaving on scheduled flights twice, in February and June, saying his exit clearance was incomplete. His lawyers say he faces no charges in Thailand and that nothing justifies keeping him from flying to the third country.
āļø The extradition track:Ā China's Foreign Ministry has told ReutersĀ it submitted an extradition request over alleged extortion and bribery. Bai says the extortion charge was fabricated to give Beijing an excuse to bring him back. On 16 September, two days before his hearing at the South Bangkok Criminal Court, a Thai Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him on the extortion charge, as part of the extradition process. His lawyer said he would be taken to court to be formally charged and then held at Bangkok Remand Prison pending extradition.
If he is returned, Bai faces a real and foreseeable risk of political persecution, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and torture.
Transnational Repression against Bai
Before Bai was blocked from being resettled and detained in the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok, he experienced disturbing instances of TNR:
China has been looking for him in Thailand:Ā Bai told the Thai court that Chinese authorities detained him six times. Each time he was tied to a chair, interrogated for 24 hours and beaten, then released without charge. He said strangers repeatedly asked after him in Thailand, and he does not know what awaits him if he is returned.
Pressure on his family back home in China:Ā His lawyer alleges that Chinese officials visited his family and asked his child to persuade him to return "voluntarily". She says the pressure has been constant since the case began.
š A TNR pattern against Chinese dissidents, not an exception:Ā Another Chinese refugee, Zhang Xinyan, was blocked from a flight in July 2026 and reached Canada in early August after sustained international pressure. Tan Yixiang, another Chinese UNHCR-recognised refugee, was removed from immigration detention and deported to China around 11 to 12 July 2026, days before the Thai Prime Minister's official visit to Beijing. Zhou Junyi, a member of the banned China Democracy Party arrested in Bangkok in June 2025, was also reported detained. Bai's case follows that same TNR route.
What the Thai law actually requires
āļø Non-Refoulement Principle: Thailand may not send anyone to a place where they face a real risk of torture or enforced disappearance.Ā This is set out in Section 13 of its Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act (2022), the Convention against Torture (Art. 3), the Convention on Enforced Disappearance (Art. 16) and the ICCPR. It applies regardless of immigration status or diplomatic pressure.
ā We call on the Thai Government to:
Release Bai Zhaodong and allow him to resettle in the third country that has accepted him.
Halt any extradition, deportation or forced return to China.
Guarantee him access to lawyers, effective legal remedies and regular medical care.
Disclose the whereabouts and condition of Tan Yixiang and explain the legal basis of his deportation.
Revise the proposed deportation regulation to protect refugees and asylum seekers through individual risk assessments, access to legal counsel, prior judicial review and appeals with automatic suspensive effect.
The 9 October ruling is a test of whether Thailand ends his contested detention, or keeps him confined within reach of the authoritarian state pursuing his forced return.
Now Thailand must choose: protection or complicity.
#WeAreManushyan ā¾ļø Equal Human Beings
