BANGKOK – Thailand deported at least 40 Uyghurs to China on Thursday, ignoring calls from the U.S., the U.N. and rights groups not to send back the men, who had been detained in Thailand for more than a decade, because of the risk of torture.
The deportation was shrouded in secrecy and Thai officials declined to comment on it.
China’s state run CCTV confirmed it hours later.
“Today, 40 Chinese illegal immigrants were repatriated from Thailand. The repatriation was carried out in accordance with the laws of China and Thailand, international law and international practice,” CCTV reported.
It did not identify those deported as Uyghurs and it was not clear why the broadcaster reported 40 people were deported when Thailand has been holding 48 Uyghurs, most of them in a Bangkok immigration center.
China’s Ministry of Public Security did not give a number for how many people had been returned.
“The Chinese citizens repatriated this time were deceived by criminal organizations and illegally left the country and then stranded in Thailand,” the ministry said, adding that their legal rights were “fully protected.”
Earlier, human rights activists and a Thai media outlet reported that several trucks, some with windows blocked with sheets of black plastic, left Bangkok’s main immigration detention center after 2 a.m. and headed north towards the city’s Don Mueang airport.
An elevated highway to the airport was blocked off to other traffic as the trucks passed, said a human right activist.
Media later cited a flight tracker app as showing a chartered China Southern Airlines flight left Don Mueang at 4.48 a.m. The app did not give the flight’s destination but it later showed it had landed in the Xinjiang region.
“I think they are gone,” Chalida Tajaroensuk, director at People’s Empowerment Foundation, who had been assisting the Uyghurs, told Radio Free Asia.
The men from the mostly Muslim minority from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China have been held at Thailand’s Immigration Detention Center since 2014, after attempting to escape Beijing’s persecution through Thailand.
A rights group said in early January that reports from the detained men indicated that Thai authorities were preparing to deport them but Thailand dismissed the concerns and said there was no plan to send them to China.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Wednesday that the U.S. was deeply concerned about reports the 48 were about to be deported and it called on Thailand to respect the principle of non-refoulement – or not deporting people to places where they risk torture and other abuse – and to uphold its international obligations.
Opposition lawmaker Kannavee Suebsang said the government had questions to answer.
“What is the Thai government doing? The prime minister must answer to the people urgently,” Kannavee said in a post on Facebook after the rights activists reported the trucks leaving the Bangkok detention center.
“There must not be Uyghur deportation to face persecution. They were jailed for 11 years. We violated their human rights for too long. There must be a better way out.”
Government spokesman Jirayu Huangsap said the police had not informed the government of any deportation.
“I don’t know about this matter and cannot confirm it,” Jirayu told BenarNews. “The Royal Thai Police will have to report to the government. So far, there has been no report, so I don’t know if it is true or false.”
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was equally guarded when asked at parliament to confirm the repatriation.
“I haven’t talked about this in detail yet,” she said, adding, “Any countries’ actions have to be consistent with rule of law, international protocol and human rights.”
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‘No answers’
Human Rights Watch said the situation was “very concerning”.
“It has been 48 hours since we’ve been able to contact the Uyghurs in detention,” Sunai Phasuk, senior Thailand researcher at Human Rights Watch, told BenarNews.
“There are no answers from the Immigration Bureau to the government. The silence from the operational level officers all the way to the prime minister is unusually surprising.”
A Thai court has been considering a petition filed by a Thai lawyer for the men to be freed. It said last week it saw merit in the petition and had asked for more information from authorities and scheduled the next hearing for March 27.
“Thailand has laws preventing people from being sent back to face danger,” Sunai said, referring to a 2022 law on the prevention of torture that contained a provision on non-refoulment
“If they really send the Uyghurs back to China, it means the government is not only violating international law but also its own domestic laws,” he said.
The 48 were part of a cohort of more than 350 Uyghur men, women and children, who left China in the hope of finding resettlement abroad and were stopped in Thailand.
Uyghurs in China’s vast Xinjiang region have been subjected to widespread human rights abuses, including detention in massive concentration camps. Beijing denies that.
Turkey did accept 172 of them while Thailand sent 109 of them back to China in 2015, triggering a storm of international criticism for the decision.
Thailand had in recent weeks brushed off the concern of rights groups that the Uyghurs being held would also be deported. U.N. experts on Jan. 21 urged the kingdom not to repatriate them saying they would likely face torture in China.
Edited by Taejun Kang and Mike Firn.
Nontarat Phaicharoen and Jon Preechawong in Bangkok contributed to this report.
BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated news service.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Kunnawut Boonreak for BenarNews and Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.