Relatives of Uyghurs detained in Thailand for more than a decade have begged the Thai authorities not to deport the 48 men back to China, after the detainees suggested their return appeared imminent.
A UN panel of experts this week urged Thailand to “immediately halt the possible transfer”, warning the men were at “real risk of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment if they are returned”.
There are also concerns for the men’ s health after some of them went on hunger strike on 10 January after they said they were asked and refused to sign “voluntary return” documents.
Thai authorities have denied they are planning to deport the Uyghurs, while China’s foreign ministry has declined to comment on the case. China has said it opposes “any act of condoning or even supporting illegal immigration”.
China’s embassy in Thailand said reports about the Uyghurs detained in Thailand were “spreading false narratives”.
Bilal Ablet, whose elder brother Shakir Hamid is being held in an immigration detention centre in Bangkok, said the men had been “forgotten by the world”.
“The Chinese government doesn’t want the world to hear their stories,” said Ablet, who left China in 2016. “The Chinese government is always paranoid about Uyghurs going to a safe country in large numbers and living together. They always believe that’s a threat … that is the reason why the Chinese government wants them back.”
The men fled China in late 2013 and early 2014, as part of an exodus of hundreds of Uyghurs who travelled through south-east Asia with the help of people smugglers. Many had been told that if they could make it as far as Malaysia they could be resettled to Turkey.
Thai authorities arrested 220 Uyghur men, women and children near the border with Malaysia in March 2014 as rescue teams searched for the disappeared MH370 plane. They were charged with immigration violations and transferred to a holding facility in Bangkok. Dozens of other Uyghurs were arrested in Thailand during the same period, according to Human Rights Watch.
In 2015, about 170 of the women and children were released to Turkey. But more than 100 men were returned to China, prompting an international outcry.
Of the 48 Uyghurs, 43 are in legal limbo in immigration detention and five are serving prison sentences for crimes related to a 2019 escape attempt. Five Uyghurs detained since 2014 have died in detention, including a newborn and a three-year-old.
Hamid, who turns 40 this year, is a “very kind-hearted person”, Ablet said. The brothers come from Yarkant county in southern Xinjiang, a region of China that is home to more than 11 million Uyghurs. The minority has faced severe repression from the Chinese government in recent years. Ablet said his brother, a chef and businessman, “was very serious about his own identity as a Uyghur, he embraced culture and religion”.
China has strenuously denied charges by human rights groups and western lawmakers of a cultural genocide in Xinjiang, which the UN says may amount to crimes against humanity.
China justifies its policies towards the Uyghurs, including the detention of about 1 million people in re-education camps, on the grounds that it is combating Islamic extremism and promoting ethnic harmony. It says the camps are vocational training centres.
Ablet said his brother experienced surveillance and interrogations because of his interest in religion. The atmosphere in Yarkant was “suffocating”, he said, which was why Hamid decided to flee.
Marco Rubio, the new US secretary of state and a China hawk, said in his confirmation hearing last week that he would prevent Thailand, a US ally, from deporting the Uyghurs.
Thailand and China have forged closer ties in recent years and this year celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations. Erkin (not his real name), whose father is among the detained men, fears the Uyghurs are being used “as a pawn in Thailand’s bid to extract some kind of help or service or something from China”.
Erkin, who lives in Turkey, has not seen his father in nearly 12 years and fears for his parent’s health. The cells in the detention centre are overcrowded, his father’s immune system is weak and he does not get proper food, he said.
“My father is a farmer, a very simple man who would never hurt anyone. He was always very eager to help people in the village and has never done anything to anyone,” Erkin said.
Relatives and advocates also fear what could happen to the Uyghurs if they are returned to China. Photographs of the men deported in 2015 showed them hooded and handcuffed and many have not been heard from since or they received long prison sentences.
Thai media has called the government’s handling of the case a “black stain on the nation’s human rights record”.
Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, said that sending the Uyghurs to China would violate the principle of non-refoulement, which states that no one should be returned to a country where they would face persecution.
Thailand is not a party to the 1951 refugee convention that codifies this principle but legal experts say it is still a cornerstone of international law that Thailand should abide by. “Uyghurs considered to have left China illegally, if returned, are viewed with intense suspicion and subject to detention, interrogation, torture” and other violations, Uluyol said.
Part of the predicament is the lack of a clear answer about where the Uyghurs could go if they are not sent back to China. Although Turkey previously offered to resettle some of the detained people, it is not clear if that offer still stands.
“My father couldn’t be at my wedding,” Erkin said. “My father has never met his own grandchildren. Just like any other people in the world have the right to live with their family and in freedom, so too do Uyghurs.”
