BANGKOK, Feb 26: A Thai court has jailed 43 members of a Vietnamese hill tribe minority group for entering the kingdom illegally, a rights group said on Wednesday, including the wife of an activist wanted by the communist state.
The group were arrested on Sunday at a religious meeting in Nonthaburi and were all given six-month prison sentences after pleading guilty to the charges, the Cross Cultural Foundation, a legal rights group working with them, told AFP.
They are all Montagnards -- a collective term for various hill tribes from Vietnam's Central Highlands who have long been at odds with the country's communist government.
In December a Thai court jailed Y Quynh Bdap, a leading Montagnard activist convicted by Vietnam in absentia over deadly 2023 attacks on police stations, for six months on the same immigration charge.
PM Oli holds meeting with Vietnamese PM Xuan Phuc
His wife is one of the 43 jailed on Tuesday, while five of the group are in the process of seeking UNHCR refugee cards according to activists.
Vietnamese police blamed the 2023 attacks on Montagnards Stand for Justice (MSFJ), a group pushing for freedom of religion for Vietnam's hill tribes and ethnic minority groups that has been branded as "terrorist" by the authorities.
Almost 100 people have been sentenced in absentia over the attacks in Dak Lak province, all were from ethnic minority groups indigenous to the Central Highlands.
Montagnards sided with the US-backed South during Vietnam's decades-long war, and some want more autonomy while others abroad advocate independence for the region.
Earlier this month Vietnamese authorities labelled a US-based humanitarian charity "terrorist" for allegedly funding the MSFJ.
The country's ministry of public security accused Boat People SOS (BPSOS) of "connecting and assisting organisations and individuals to conduct anti-Vietnam activities" by providing them with funding and salaries.
The ministry also accused BPSOS of seeking ways to protect and prevent Thailand from deporting Y Quynh Bdap to Vietnam.
Virginia-based BPSOS -- which rescued more than 25,000 Vietnamese boat people in the 1980s -- works to help victims of human rights violations and Vietnamese asylum seekers in neighbouring countries, according to its website.
_20220508065243.jpg)
