3 Deported from Thailand

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Subject: 3 Deported from Thailand

/* Written  7:33 am  Jul 22, 1994 by fbp@xxxxxxxxxxx in gn:reg.easttimor */
/* ---------- "3 Deported from Thailand" ---------- */
Thailand Deports 2 Australians, Filipino,
Reuter, July 22, 1994 [Abridged]
Bangkok -- Thailand has deported two Australians, one of them a
press aide for East Timorese opposition groups, and a Filipino,
who had all been attending a controversial human rights
conference, diplomatic sources said on Friday.
     "Their permission to stay in the country was revoked," an
Australian diplomat told Reuters. "Our understanding is that they
have already left the country but we have not yet had that
confirmed by the Thai authorities," the diplomat added.
     Margherita Tracanelli, media director for East Timorese
opposition groups, film-maker Frank Coorey and Lito Ocampo, a
Philippine photographer, were picked up by immigration officials
at their hotel on Thursday and taken away for questioning.
     A friend of the trio told Reuters they had been held at
Bangkok airport overnight and left on a flight to Sydney on
Friday morning.
     The three arrived in Thailand this month and travelled to the
Thai-Burmese border where they made contact with Burmese
opposition groups on the Burmese side of the frontier.
     They returned to Bangkok this week to attend a Southeast
Asian human rights meeting coinciding with the annual
ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN).
 ...
     East Timor activist Jose Ramos Horta told reporters on
Thursday that Indonesia had put heavy pressure on Thailand to
stop the rights meeting.
     Horta said Jakarta had threatened to delay implementing a
joint development project in a so-called growth-triangle if
Thailand let Timorese activists attend the conference.
     "It is not true. His (Horta's) voice is only to draw world
attention," Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Irawan
Abidin said.
     The conference was forced to change venues twice but is
underway at a small guest house in a Bangkok suburb....