The satirist who vanished in broad daylight

Sitanan Satsaksit was on the phone to her brother early in the evening on 4 June when he told her to hold the line. Wanchalearm, also known as Tar, was handing over a few dollars for meatballs at a stall opposite his home in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh."I heard a loud bang. At first I thought he had a car accident as he shouted 'I can't breathe, I can't breathe,'" she tells the BBC.

A popular and colourful character, Wanchalearm's activism started more than a decade ago, primarily focusing on gender and LGBT rights in Thailand. Over time, his interest started to shift to broader calls for democracy in the country, says Sunai Phasuk, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch Asia and friend of Wanchalearm.

Once in Phnom Penh, Wanchalearm settled into his new surroundings. But while he had swapped the dangers of Thailand for relative safety in the leafy outskirts of the Cambodian capital, he was still building up an online following in his homeland through his witty takedowns of the Thai government."He sees himself as a satirist, almost like a political comedian," Sunai says."He made fun continuously of the military junta.

"I think the message is: 'Let's kill these folks. These are outsiders, these are people who are different from us and they should be killed in order to bring Thailand back to normalcy,'" he says. "The objective of kidnapping is to kill him and to create the atmosphere of fear in Thailand and other countries where [Thai] people are active in criticising the monarchy," adds Somyot, whose daughter was once in a long-term relationship with Wanchalearm."The government knows very well about this kidnap and disappearance. I can insist that the government are the ones behind this violation," he says.

😳😳😳

Horrifying. I had no idea this was going on.

That's insane!

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