Dozens of Uyghurs Detained in Thailand Face Deportation and Torture

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On January 10, 2025, after over a decade in a detention center in Thailand, Uyghur detainees were asked to sign “voluntary return” documents, signaling a potential impending deportation. UN experts urge Thai authorities to halt the possible deportation of the 48 Uyghur men back to China. The experts claim that if deported, these men face a significant risk of “torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”

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The immigration detention center in Bangkok which houses an estimated 900 detainees. Source: Getty Images

Uyghur are a Chinese Muslim minority from the Xinjiang region who have faced widespread oppression by Chinese authorities since the 1940s. In 2014 the persecution escalated and human rights groups believe that China has detained more than one million Uyghurs in “re-education camps”. In the camps men and women are subject to torture, forced labor and abandoning their cultural and religious identities. Meanwhile, children are also subject to cruel treatment and separated from their families in order to remove their cultural roots. Many nations including the US, UK, and Canada have accused China of committing genocide.

The detainees are appealing for international interference with a letter dated January 10 asking “countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from this tragic fate before it is too late”. The detainees and activist Arslan Hidayat of Justice for All’s Save Uygur campaign have been on a hunger strike since the 10th in a desperate protest hoping to draw international attention.

Arrested in 2014 the Uygurs still detained today were part of a group of 220 men, women, and children who attempted to cross the Malaysian border in hopes of finding safety once they reached Turkey. Of those originally detained, 170 women and children were released to Turkey in 2015 however, that same year over 100 of the men were returned to China. Little is known about the fate of the deported men.

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A photo taken on June 30, 2015, depicts Uyghur women and children arriving from Thailand at the Istanbul airport. Source: BenarNews

Of the 47 men, five are being held in Prison for trying to escape, while the rest are at the Immigration Detention Center (IDC) located in central Bangkok charged with immigration violations. The center is overcrowded, unsanitary, and denies journalists entry. The Uyghurs held at the IDC are isolated from the other inmates and given few opportunities to exercise, see daylight or meet with their lawyers. Many have reported poor health due to malnutrition, dirty water, and lack of medical care. Of the initial group of 220 Uyghurs arrested, five died while in custody including a newborn and a three-year-old.

One of the women released back in 2015 shared in an interview the agony she has been living with after waiting a decade for her husband to join her and their three children in Turkey. Using a pseudonym for her protection, Niluper shares that the worst part of detention is not the unknown length of their confinement, but the constant fear of being deported to China. For Nilaper and the others released they “would have preferred to die in Thailand” than sent back to China. Now all the families of those detained try to maintain hope that UN and international pressure will be enough to keep their loved ones “safe”. 

Featured image: Thai authorities have denied plans to deport the Uyghurs. Source: Asian News International.

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