The UN indicated on Friday it was urging Thailand not to send dozens of detained Uighurs to any country where they risk “significant” harm, after reported plans to deport them to China.
Rights groups have warned that Bangkok is preparing to deport imminently a group of 48 members of China’s mostly Muslim Uighur minority, who are being held in immigration centers around Thailand.
The groups said they fled China — which has been accused of grave human rights abuses in the Xinjiang region against Uighurs — more than a decade ago and live in constant fear of being sent back.
Photo: AFP
Thai authorities have repeatedly denied such a plan.
The UN human rights office has “been closely following these cases,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.
“We have been in touch with the relevant authorities, encouraging a durable solution that would prevent anyone being returned to any country where they would face significant risks of harm, in line with Thailand’s international human rights obligation and its own national law,” she said in an e-mail.
Her comment came after a group of independent UN rights experts earlier this week urged authorities to “immediately halt” the possible transfer, warning the Uighurs faced “real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” in China.
They said the 48 Uighurs were detained after entering Thailand to seek protection, and that they have allegedly been held in de facto incommunicado detention for more than a decade, with no access to lawyers or family members.
Urging Thailand to help them access asylum procedures and humanitarian assistance, the experts said that “it is our view that these persons should not be returned to China... We are concerned they are at risk of suffering irreparable harm.”
The experts, who are appointed by the UN Human Rights Council but who do not speak on behalf of the UN, said 23 of the 48 Uighurs suffer from serious health conditions.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) last week said that Thai immigration officials had asked the Uighurs to complete new paperwork and had photographed them — steps the rights group believes are in preparation for their forcible transfer.
HRW said the Uighurs are on hunger strike, although Thai authorities have denied this.
The US has branded China’s treatment of the minority a “genocide.”
A damning report released by the UN rights office in 2022 detailed violations including torture and forced labor and “large-scale” arbitrary detention in what China calls vocational training centers.
Beijing denies allegations of abuse and insists its actions in Xinjiang have helped to combat extremism.
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