This story originally appeared on CNN.
Bangkok (CNN) Yu Yanhua hasn’t been back to her apartment in days.
She’s been too frightened, she says, after at least four dissidents of Chinese origin were arrested or simply disappeared from Thailand in the last four months… only to resurface back in China in the custody of the government.
Yu is a pro-democracy activist who fled to Thailand last year to escape government repression in China.
“I thought I would get protection in Bangkok, that I wouldn’t have to live in fear of being arrested all the time,” she says, bursting into tears. Now she lives in fear of being snatched off the streets by Chinese agents.
READ: Three more missing Hong Kong booksellers turn up in China
For decades, critics of China’s ruling communist party have sought refuge in Thailand. But now it appears even foreign countries aren’t safe for political dissidents seeking to escape the long arm of the Chinese law.
A new pattern suggests Beijing is cracking down on critics beyond Chinese borders, not only in Thailand, but also in the autonomous former British colony of Hong Kong, where Chinese security services are not supposed to have legal jurisdiction.
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