Human Rights Watch welcomes Laos's support of 189 recommendations of the 257 received during its fourth UPR Cycle, including recommendations to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. Laos has accepted similar recommendations in past cycles but has still not ratified this convention.
We regret, however, that Laos dismissed several recommendations to conduct credible investigations into cases of enforced disappearance, including that of activist Sombath Somphone.
Sombath Somphone was a civil society leader who was last seen at a police checkpoint on a busy street of Vientiane in December 2012. The authorities appear to have been concealing information about his abduction, and have not provided any update on the investigation to his family. We call on Laos to fully and impartially investigate Sombath's enforced disappearance and disclose his fate or whereabouts.
Sombath Somphone's disappearance is emblematic of Laos's broader impunity for rights violations committed against its critics.
Human Rights Watch also regrets that Laos has rejected several recommendations on fundamental civil and political rights, including freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly and recommendations calling on the government to protect human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and critics of the government from harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, and enforced disappearance.
Laos continued to target critics, including activist Savang Phaleuth, who was detained in April 2023, and has failed to investigate the shooting of Anousa "Jack" Luangsuphom, who was critically wounded later that month. Human Rights Watch urges member states to press the government of Laos to fully and impartially investigate reports of attacks against dissidents and end the use of arbitrary arrest and secret detention.
Thank you.
