The US condemned “in the strongest possible terms” Thailand’s return of 40 Uygur men to China on Thursday and called for Beijing to provide regular access to verify their well-being.
“As Thailand’s long-standing ally, we are alarmed by this action, which risks running afoul of its international obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture and the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Hours earlier, Chinese and Thai officials confirmed that a group of 40 Uygur men who had been detained for over a decade in Thailand had been deported to China. The men had gone on a hunger strike last month as part of a public plea to halt their deportation.
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In January, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards and eight other human rights-related UN officials cited their opposition to the deportation, urging instead that they be provided with “access to asylum procedures and other humanitarian assistance”.
“The treatment of the Uygur minority in China is well-documented,” the group said then in a statement. “We are concerned they are at risk of suffering irreparable harm.”
On Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called the deportation “deeply regrettable” and a clear violation of international human rights laws and standards.
The deportation comes as Thailand, a US treaty ally, seeks to strengthen ties with China, already a key economic partner. Thai officials stated that the Uygurs were repatriated at Beijing’s request.
Thailand does not recognise the status of refugees or asylum seekers and has signed neither the 1951 UN Refugee Convention nor the associated 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.
The US State Department and rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uygurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority that numbers around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, including the alleged mass use of surveillance and forced labour in camps. In 2022, a UN report said Chinese government policies in Xinjiang “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity”.
Beijing denies any abuses.
During his Senate confirmation hearing last month, Rubio had said he would use the strong US ties with Thailand to prevent the return of Uygurs. Since then, the Donald Trump administration has made cuts to foreign aid, casting doubt on the effectiveness of US pressure on human rights issues.
The 40 men returned are part of a group of over 300 people who left China and were arrested in Thailand in 2014. The men had hoped to use Thailand as a transit point en route to Turkey, home to a significant Uygur population.
Thailand deported more than 100 Uygurs to China in 2015, and over 170 others were sent to Turkey in the same year.
According to local media, at a Thursday news briefing in Bangkok, Thai officials led by Phumtham Wechayachai, the nation’s defence minister and deputy prime minister, said China had promised that the deportees this week would not be harmed or face penalties.
The Thai officials said that all the deportees returned voluntarily after being presented a translated Chinese agreement requesting their repatriation and assuring that they would be allowed to live normally.
According to FlightRadar24, which tracks flights from around the world, an unscheduled China Southern Airlines flight took off from Bangkok on Thursday and landed in Xinjiang the same day.
At a Chinese foreign ministry news briefing in Beijing on Thursday, spokesperson Lin Jian identified the men as “40 Chinese nationals who illegally entered Thailand” and said that their return was a “step taken by the two sides to jointly combat human smuggling and other cross-border crimes”.
The Chinese embassy in Washington referred to Lin’s remarks without offering further commentary.
There were reportedly more than 40 Uygurs in detention in Thailand. It is unclear why only 40 were confirmed to have been deported.
Earlier in the week, various US lawmakers had warned Thailand against returning the Uygurs.
In a statement on Wednesday, the leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party – Republican John Moolenaar of Michigan and Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois – said that “moving forward with this action would severely damage US-Thai relations”.
“The US would be forced to consider all available measures, including sanctions, to hold those complicit in facilitating China’s human rights abuses to account,” they said.
More from South China Morning Post:
- 3 Uygurs freed as part of US-China prisoner exchange: report
- UN warns Thailand Uygurs face torture if deported to China
- US targets China textile giant Huafu Fashion over Uygur forced labour concerns
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