Calls For Release of Uyghurs Detained in Thailand

Calls are increasing for Thailand to release dozens of Uyghurs who fled China and have been detained for almost a decade.

Forty-eight Uyghurs made a desperate plea for help in January after they were concerned, they were about to be deported back to China. The group had penned a handwritten letter explaining that the Thai authorities had asked the group to sign documents to approve their deportation.

Rights groups, local Thai politicians and lawyers are now calling for Thailand not to return to China over fears they face torture or execution.

The 48 have been held since being detained at the Thai border in 2014. They had fled a crackdown on the Uyghur minority China, and ever since have been under constant fear of being sent back.

The group has alarmingly been in a state of de facto incommunicado detention ever since, with little support, and no access to lawyers, family members, or representatives from the United Nations.

Thailand’s royal police force has since denied they were deporting the Uyghurs and have denied the group are being treated poorly.

Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai has said the Thai government will adhere to human rights and international law over the matter. But he has admitted however Thailand handles the situation, it may not please everyone.

Thailand’s decision on the Uyghurs is under further scrutiny after it won its bid to secure a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, beginning a three-year-term on January 1.

The Human Rights Watch, an international NGO headquartered in New York, has called for the Uyghurs not to be returned to China.

“The current administration of Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra can end this abusive cycle by immediately releasing the detained Uyghurs and allowing them to travel to a safe third country,” Elaine Pearson, Asia director at HRW said last month.

Forty-three of the Uyghurs are currently held in Thailand’s Immigration Detention Centre (IDC), where conditions are known to be hot, cramped and unsanitary. The remaining five are in prison in Bangkok, having failed to escape. They are the last of a group of 350 Uyghurs who fled China over a decade ago.

Now according to UN experts via a press release on the OHCHR website, almost half of the detainees, 23 out of the 48, are suffering from health conditions, including kidney, heart, and lung conditions, as well as diabetes, paralysis and skin and gastrointestinal illnesses.

The Uyghurs also say that they have been on hunger strike since the beginning of January.

Thai lawyer Chuchart Kanpai has recently lodged a petition to release 42 of the Uyghurs, calling their detention unlawful. It’s unclear why not all of the detained Uyghurs were in the petition.

Most of the 350-initial group of Uyghurs have been resettled to other countries, and reports say the remaining 48 wishes to do the same. It is believed the detained group have also applied for refugee status under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees program, but at present nothing has been granted.

“There is nothing that prevents the UNHCR from categorically announcing right now, declaring these people refugees. I fail to understand why that has not happened,” Sophie Richardson, a human rights expert and co-executive director at Chinese Human Rights Defenders told the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand in Bangkok in January.

The Uyghurs are an ethnic minority group that mostly live in Xinjiang, China. But in recent years the group have faced persecution. China has long been accused of committing crimes against humanity and genocide against the Uyghurs and other Muslim-minority groups, including holding more than 1 million in what Beijing calls re-education camps.

Beijing have denied these claims, but to them Uyghurs could be criminals and terrorists.

Thailand and China share close relations, so the pressure is now on Bangkok as to what happens next.

Both countries will celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations this year, and bilateral trade and economic ties are strong, with China being Thailand’s largest trading partner.

The concerning issue for rights groups is that Thailand has been here before. In July 2015, 109 detained Uyghurs were transferred back to China from Thailand. But this sparked a deadly reply.

Some analysts have pointed to the Erawan Shrine bombing in Bangkok in August that year, which killed twenty people, as a retaliation act by Uyghur militants. The shrine is popular with Chinese tourists.

Thailand now has to decide which way it will go. Refugees regularly enter the country often seeking a safe haven from war and repression from neighbouring countries like Myanmar and Cambodia, but Thailand is still not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention. This means they have no specific domestic legal framework for protection of urban refugees and asylum-seekers in place.

International communities who are concerned about the deportation of the Uyghurs should help Thailand, says Chalida Tajaroeunsuk, chairperson, People's Empowerment Foundation.

“The international community should help the Thai government to make a good decision on this and comply on international law to protect these people.”

The case of the 48 Uyghurs in Thailand has even caught the attention of Marcus Rubio, who was recently appointed the new U.S Secretary of State. Rubio says he would lobby for Thailand not to return them to China.

Emilie Palamy Pradicihit, founder of Manushya Foundation, a human right organization in Bangkok, says its Thailand’s duty to protect the group.

“As a newly elected member of the UN Human Rights Council, Thailand has an elevated duty to uphold the principles it pledged to protect. Ignoring this will shatter its credibility in China’s persecution of Uyghurs. The world is watching,” she said.

A Thai court will hear the case of the detained Uyghurs on February 17.

Asia Media Centre