Click to expand Image Flags of member countries fly at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia, April 22, 2021. © 2021 AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File Three weeks ago, 26-year-old Lao activist Khieo Lapchanh, an asylum seeker in Thailand, vanished in Samut Sakhon province following his shift at the restaurant where he worked.Khieo’s disappearance in the early hours of September 15 came one day before his first interview with the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in Bangkok. Thai authorities have yet to provide any information regarding his whereabouts.Khieo had been posting videos critical of the Lao government to his Facebook page, Khiew Channel, which had about 158,000 followers. According to Manushya Foundation, a rights group that supported him, he had faced coordinated harassment, doxxing, and death threats. After Lao officials visited his mother's home in Laos this year on March 31 and April 17 concerning his activities, Khieo stopped posting political content.Given the threats he faced and the history of enforced disappearances of Lao activists both in Laos and abroad, Thai authorities should urgently locate him.On September 27, Human Rights Watch visited the area near the restaurant where Khieo worked and the building where he lived. Several businesses with cameras facing the street said their footage from the night of September 15 had already been automatically deleted.Khieo's case fits a troubling pattern of Lao activists abroad being targeted by transnational repression: efforts by governments or their agents to silence dissent by committing human rights abuses against their nationals or diaspora members outside their territorial jurisdiction. Od Sayavong, a Lao democracy activist and UNHCR-recognized refugee, forcibly disappeared in Bangkok in August 2019. His fate remains unknown and the Thai police investigation stalled. In May 2023, Lao activist Bounsuan Kitiyano was shot dead in Thailand’s Ubon Ratchathani province.Thailand has committed to preventing enforced disappearances under domestic and international law. The Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, in force since February 2023, obligates Thai authorities to investigate cases in which state involvement is possible, and allows the Department of Special Investigation to take over such cases.Thai authorities have not said whether they are treating Khieo's case under this law.They should immediately escalate the investigation and make genuine efforts to find out what happened to Khieo.Concerned governments should also press Lao authorities for any information about Khieo Lapchanh's whereabouts, including whether he is in their custody.