<\/p>\n
\nJoseph Akaravong.
\nPhoto: Facebook \/ Joseph Akaravong\n<\/p>\n
A New Zealander has been arrested in France in relation to a knife attack on a Laotian activist.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was aware of the arrest but for privacy reasons, no further information was being released.<\/p>\n
French newspaper Le Monde reported Joseph Akaravong was stabbed in broad daylight in the southwestern city of Pau on 14 June.<\/p>\n
Of four people arrested, two were released from custody.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the remaining two people were charged in relation to what the prosecutor described as an attempted assassination.<\/p>\n
In a statement to AFP, prosecutor Rodolphe Jarry said one defendant, arrested in N\u00eemes three days after the stabbing, had been placed in pre-trial detention and the other under judicial control.<\/p>\n
Investigations were continuing under the authority of the examining magistrate.<\/p>\n
A Thai non-government organisation (NGO), the Manushya Foundation said in a statement Akaravong was a political activist from Laos who had take refuge in France. He was given asylum from 2022, having left the country four years earlier.<\/p>\n
AFP reported Akaravong spent some time in exile in Thailand under the NGO’s protection, after denouncing human rights violations in Laos and accusing the government of corruption.<\/p>\n
– RNZ \/ AFP<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Joseph Akaravong. Photo: Facebook \/ Joseph Akaravong A New Zealander has been arrested in France in relation to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[1816,9409,2000,299,36,12,196,10975,10973,10974],"class_list":{"0":"post-206407","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114729922508977087","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}