Tag Archives: Bangkok

Nationality + Migration, Sexual + Gender Minorities

Thailand News | Gay American

Aside
Thai surrogate attempts to block departure of gay couple with infant
  • A U.S.-Spanish binational couple has retreated to a secret location with their infant daughter after the surrogate they contracted through a Thai surrogacy agency refused to sign the papers for the child’s passport.
  • The woman alleges she was unaware the child was going to a gay couple and is not obligated to turn over her rights to the couple, despite contracts regulating the process and her lack of biological connection to the child.
  • After the present situation’s process had already begun, surrogacy was banned in Thailand following high-profile scandals that drew attention to the largely unregulated industry.

“She said she thought she was doing this for an ‘ordinary family’ and when she found out that it wasn’t an ordinary family she was worried for Carmen’s wellbeing.”

Read the full story at the Guardian.

(Image Credit: Gordon Lake/Facebook, via the Guardian)

Ideology + Affiliation, Race + Color + Ethnicity, Religion + Belief

Thailand News | Montangard Christians

Thailand’s military government bans Human Rights Watch event in Bangkok discussing Vietnamese persecution of ethnic Montagnards
  • Having stepped up censorship and public assembly bans since its 2014 coup, the junta justified the shutdown by claiming such an event would damage relations with Vietnam.
  • The event is the third to be shut down in the last month at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand.
  • The predominantly Christian Montagnards have fled religious and political persecution in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, seeking asylum in neighboring countries like Cambodia.
“Thailand is choosing to side with dictatorships in ASEAN while further stepping up repression at home.”
Read the full AFP story at AsiaOne.