THAI OFFICIALS MIGHT DEPORT SALEM ACTIVIST

Matthew McDaniel said he had been declared persona non grata and
deemed a threat to the country.

An American activist, of Salem, who has campaigned against the Thai
government's treatment of hill tribe people in the far north of
Thailand has been detained in that country and looks set to be
deported, a Thailand newspaper reported today.

Matthew McDaniel, 46, was arrested when he went to extend his visa at
an immigration office in Thailand on Thursday, The Nation newspaper
reported on its Sunday edition Web site.

The Nation sourced its report to a friend of McDaniel who was not
named.

The Nation reported that McDaniel was transferred to the Immigration
Detention Centre in Bangkok.

He told his family and associates Friday that he had been declared
persona non grata and deemed a threat to the country.

McDaniel thinks that the authorities want to expel him from Thailand
because he arranged for a U.S. lawyer to file a case about
human-rights abuses with the United Nations, the newspaper reported.

McDaniel is a former Willamette University student and the founder of
The Akha Heritage Foundation, which has headquarters in Thailand and a
U.S. mailing address in Salem. The foundation seeks to promote the
human rights, health, education and culture of the Akha people.

The Akha are an indigenous tribe of about 400,000 people originally
from Mongolia. There are about 70,000 scattered among about 300
villages in Thailand, the foundation's Web site states.

McDaniel is married to an Akha woman and has four children, who live
in a remote village.

McDaniel produced "Akha Voices," a 270-page book that details
disturbing allegations of abductions and extrajudicial killings by
Thai army and police officers that it claims amount to "ethnic cleansing."

The newspaper reported that the move to deport McDaniel was not
unexpected, adding that the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok was aware of the
case.