Laos: Investigate Prominent Dissident’s Death

The late Sisay Luangmonda (widely known by his social media name Bao Mor Khaen).
© Private

(Bangkok) – Lao authorities should urgently and impartially investigate the suspicious death of an outspoken critic of the government and appropriately prosecute those responsible, Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 20, 2026, the body of Sisay Luangmonda, widely known by his social media name Bao Mor Khaen, 32, was found on a roadside in Hadxayfong district, outside the capital, Vientiane, four days after his family reported to local authorities that he was missing. The Manushya Foundation, which monitors human rights in Laos, reported that Sisay had not been seen since soldiers arrested him outside Vientiane between 9 and 10 p.m. on February 14 and took him to Phonthan Prison.

“The Laotian authorities should immediately and impartially investigate the suspicious death of a prominent government critic,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Sisay’s death sends a spine-chilling message to critics of the Lao government, deepening the climate of fear in the country.”

Sisay had received death threats related to his social media commentary criticizing corruption and mismanagement by the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party.

After Sisay’s arrest, Lao authorities provided no information about his whereabouts to his family and did not respond to allegations that he had been forcibly disappeared. Sisay’s family said that since his body was found, Lao authorities have not started an investigation or conducted a forensic examination of his remains.

The government has suppressed activists and dissidents since seizing power in 1975 under a one-party, authoritarian system. Sombath Somphone, a pioneer in community-based development and youth empowerment, was forcibly disappeared after being held in police custody in Vientiane in December 2012. An unidentified gunman shot and seriously wounded Anousa Luangsuphom, an activist and online critic of the government, in April 2023 in Vientiane. Saysomphone Chilikham, a member of the group Alliance For Democracy in Laos, was forcibly disappeared in February 2024.

International law defines enforced disappearance as the detention of a person by state officials or their agents and a refusal to acknowledge the detention or to reveal the person’s fate or whereabouts. Disappearances are especially painful for the victims’ families. In September 2008, Laos signed the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance but has yet to ratify it.

Activists who have fled persecution in Laos to neighboring countries have remained at risk, Human Rights Watch said. In May 2023, an exiled Lao political activist, Bounsuan Kitiyano, was shot dead in Ubon Ratchathani province in northeastern Thailand. Od Sayavong, a leading Lao human rights and democracy activist living in Bangkok, has been missing since August 2019.

None of the attacks on Lao dissidents and government critics in Laos or in neighboring countries have been resolved or anyone brought to justice.

During its Universal Periodic Review before the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2025, Laos “accepted” multiple recommendations to investigate enforced disappearances but only “noted” the five recommendations on protecting human rights defenders. In August 2025, UN human rights experts urged the Lao government to comply with its obligations to investigate all cases of unlawful killings.

“The Lao government has long carried out arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings of its critics,” Pearson said. “Concerned governments and UN human rights bodies should use every available opportunity to press Lao authorities to fully investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible for serious abuses.”