A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back.
Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation.
“We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from this tragic fate before it is too late.”
Photo: AP
More than 300 Uyghurs fleeing China were detained in 2014 by Thai authorities near the Malaysian border. Thailand in 2015 deported 109 detainees to China against their will, prompting international outcry. Another group of 173 Uyghurs, mostly women and children, were sent to Turkey, leaving 53 Uyghurs stuck in Thai immigration detention and seeking asylum. Since then, five have died in detention, including two children.
Advocates and relatives describe harsh conditions in immigration detention. They said the men are fed poorly, kept in overcrowded concrete cells with few toilets, denied sanitary goods such as toothbrushes or razors, and are forbidden contact with relatives, lawyers and international organizations.
Recordings and chat records showed that on Wednesday, the Uyghur detainees were asked to sign voluntary deportation papers by Thai immigration officials.
The move panicked detainees, as similar documents were presented to the Uyghurs deported to China in 2015. The detainees refused to sign.
Three people, including a Thai lawmaker and two others in touch with Thai authorities said there have been recent discussions within the government about deporting the Uyghurs to China, although the people had not yet seen or heard of any formal directive to do so.
Two of the people said Thai officials pushing for the deportations are choosing to do so now, because this year is the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China, and due to the perception that backlash from Washington would be muted as the US prepares for a presidential transition in less than two weeks.
“There’s no evidence that the 43 Uyghurs have committed any crime,” Uyghur Human Rights Project Associate Director for Research and Advocacy Peter Irwin said. “The group has a clear right not to be deported and they’re acting within international law by fleeing China.”
Two people with direct knowledge of the matter said that all of the Uyghurs detained in Thailand submitted asylum applications to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The agency acknowledged receipt of the applications, but has been barred from visiting the Uyghurs by the Thai government.
“We are all in the same situation — constant worry and fear,” said Bilal Ablet, whose elder brother is detained in Thailand. “World governments all know about this, but I think they’re pretending not to see or hear anything, because they’re afraid of Chinese pressure.”
Ablet added that Thai officials told his brother no other government was willing to accept the Uyghurs, although an April 2023 letter authored by the chairwoman of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand said there are “countries that are ready to take these detainees to settle down.”
Abdullah Muhammad, a Uyghur living in Turkey, said his father Muhammad Ahun is one of the men detained in Thailand, and that although his father crossed into Thailand illegally, he was innocent of any other crime, and had already paid fines and spent more than a decade in detention.
“I don’t understand what this is for. Why?” Muhammad said. “We have nothing to do with terrorism and we have not committed any terrorism.”
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
RSS