Despite the risk of persecution, Thailand deported 40 Uyghurs held for over a decade. Activists and NGOs say the group risks persecution in China. The Thai government confirmed the news after the fact, while for Beijing it is a case of “illegal migration”.

Bangkok (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Thailand has repatriated 40 Uyghurs to China despite the risk of persecution. The group had been in the Southeast Asian country for almost 11 years.

Thai Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai confirmed the expulsions, which took place this morning. He said he had received assurances from China that the group would be looked after.

Initially, National Police Chief Kittharath Punpetch declined to comment on the news, citing national security reasons.

Activists and human rights groups fear the Uyghurs could be tortured, reimprisoned or even sentenced to death.

Rumours about repatriation began to circulate after some witnesses saw lorries with tinted windows leaving the detention centre overnight heading for an airport.

Subsequently, a China Southern Airlines flight made an unscheduled flight from Bangkok to Xinjiang, a region inhabited by the Uyghurs.

China's state broadcaster CCTV reported that “40 Chinese illegal immigrants” had been repatriated, without specifying their ethnicity, but a picture published by the same network showed a group of Uyghurs.

For China, which in recent days has repatriated several hundreds of its citizens from online scam centres in Myanmar, this is a case of illegal immigration.

The Global Times, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, reported that “illegal immigration and border crossings are internationally recognized criminal activities that seriously disrupt border management and international travel regulations.”

Under Thai law, the presence of Uyghurs in the country was deemed a national security issue. In the Southeast Asian country, ethnic Uyghurs are not allowed to apply for refugee status. Nevertheless, some Thai lawmakers and local activists criticised their government’s decision.

“They were jailed for 11 years. We violated their human rights for too long,” wrote MP Kannavee Suebsang on X. For him, the deportation of the Uyghurs represents a serious violation of human rights.

“These men face torture, imprisonment, and even death upon return to China,” said US Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Jim Risch; their expulsion was “ill-advised”.

Several international agencies, such as the UNHCR, also slammed the Thai government's decision.

“The agency repeatedly sought access to the group and assurances from Thai authorities that these individuals, who had expressed a fear of return, would not be deported. No such access was granted, and when contacted for clarification, the Royal Thai Government authorities stated that no decision had been made to deport the group,” the UN refugee agency said.

Amnesty International also stressed that the Uyghurs’ ordeal in Thailand was "already chilling: they fled repression in China, only to find themselves arbitrarily detained in Thailand for more than a decade. The fact that they now may be forcibly returned to a country where Uyghur and other non-Han ethnic groups in Xinjiang have faced torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance is unimaginably cruel.”

Already last year, UN human rights experts had sent a letter to Thai authorities, condemning the detention of Uyghurs and stressing that repatriations constituted a violation of international law.

The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority living in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in China. For years, they have been the victims of harsh repression by Beijing, which accuses them of extremism.

It is estimated that over a million Uyghurs were detained in “re-education” camps, reportedly subjected to systematic human rights violations, torture, sterilisation and forced labour.

Beijing claims that the Uyghurs returned from Thailand had been "deceived by criminal organisations".

The deported men were part of a group of more than 300 Uyghurs arrested in Thailand in 2014 while attempting to reach Turkey. Bangkok repatriated 109 in 2015, causing an international outcry. Another 173, mostly women and children, were sent to Turkey.

Of the 53 men who remained in Thailand, five, including two children, died in detention due to harsh prison conditions. According to several activists, the Uyghurs have lived in inhumane conditions for years, without contact with the outside world.

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in December. More recently, Beijing stepped up pressure to get Thailand to send back its citizens.

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• thailand
• china
• xinjiang
• uyghurs
• refugees
• repatriation
• illegal immigration