Two More Uyghur Men From Thailand: “Like a Slave” – What Looms at Deportation

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents Two More Uyghur Men From Thailand: “Like a Slave” – What Looms at Deportation.

Two Uyghur men have written to human rights groups in Thailand, making clear that they do not want to return to China. In July, one of them wrote to his girlfriend that he would feel “like a slave” if the Thai authorities deported him. His partner, Marzeyya Kasem, shared the letter with a Thai human rights group and reproduced its wording.

The cases strike at a sensitive point for Thailand: Last year, 40 Uyghur men were forcibly deported to China, despite the men themselves asking not to return and the UN raising objections. The UN still does not know where the 40 deported men are. The next decision now lies with the two men currently facing deportation.

h2>A Letter That Clearly Shows the Immediate Danger

The desire to go “anywhere else but China” was unequivocal. The partner of one of the men, who did not want to give her name for security reasons, said her boyfriend had told the Guardian that he wanted to go anywhere except China. In his letter to Kasem, he wrote:

“Like a slave” (original: “like a slave”).

In the letter, the man also describes his powerlessness. He sometimes asked, “why am I a human being”, and what he had done wrong against China. His answer is: “no want to go back to China”.

p>According to the report, the letters were sent to human rights groups. The fact that the men addressed the public in this way shows that deportation is not an abstract administrative matter for them: They know that China means being handed over to a system that the UN condemns as a potential crime against humanity.

Why deportation would be dangerous

p>Uyghurs are a Turkic minority who come predominantly from China’s Xinjiang region. According to the report, the Chinese authorities have responded there for decades with repression and discrimination. This includes the detention of tens of thousands of people in camps that, in the Guardian’s account, are intended to destroy Uyghur cultural identity.

Beijing justifies this policy through poverty alleviation and counterterrorism. Activists do not view this justification as protection for the most active Uyghurs. For the two men in Thailand, the concrete question therefore is whether they face a return to that system.

Seven Years in Prison, Then Deportation

The two men did not arrive at a deportation center only recently. They had previously served a seven-year prison sentence for criminal offenses connected to an escape attempt from an immigration detention center in January 2020.

p>Both were part of a group of more than 200 Uyghur men, women, and children whom the Thai police detained near the border with Malaysia in 2014, after they had fled China. Since 2011, women and children from this group have been released to Turkey. According to the report, the men were deported to China in separate groups.

This history is a central reason for the fierce criticism. According to the Guardian, Thailand’s deportation practice drew criticism from the UN and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The two men currently facing deportation were most recently transferred to an immigration detention center.

The path to handover

p>On Wednesday, the two men approached Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission and presented their case there. Their defense therefore rests not only with activists and international groups, but also with a state institution in Thailand.

Chaipruak Doungprapat, the leader of Thailand’s security authorities, told reporters that China had issued arrest warrants for the two men and three other Uyghurs who remain in prison. According to the report, it was unclear whether China had submitted a formal extradition request for the two men currently facing deportation.

The question of credibility

p>There has been criticism of the reliability of these arrest warrants. Kasem said at least one of the men was still a minor when he left China. She therefore asked why China had not issued an Interpol red notice immediately when he was detained in 2014.

p>In Kasem’s assessment, Thailand is trying this time to establish a stronger legal basis for the deportations. This is connected to the criticism of the mass deportations last year. The report did not clarify whether the arrest warrants would actually clear this hurdle.

The US and Canada Had Already Offered Resettlement

In the earlier cases, there had been a way out: According to the Guardian, the US and Canada offered to resettle the deported men. In Thailand, however, this option appears to have been pushed into the background because the government wanted to avoid angering Beijing.

Even before the current decision, a concrete alternative was therefore available. Human rights groups are now calling for the two men to be permitted to travel to a safe third country. Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said:

“Previous Thai governments held Uyghurs in deplorable detention for years and then capitulated to Beijing’s demands to send them to China, where they were forcibly disappeared.”

p>The Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson declined to comment on the two cases. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, however, said that the two countries’ cooperation in combating transnational illegal and criminal activities such as smuggling was consistent with both countries’ laws, international law, and international practice.

The UN Has Lost Track of 40 Deportees

The biggest unresolved question extends beyond the two men currently facing deportation. The UN has said that the whereabouts of the 40 men forcibly returned last year remain unknown. For those affected, this lack of knowledge means more than missing information about a location: The UN has no reliable trace of what became of them.

p>The precedent is therefore clear. Thailand has already carried out a return despite the men’s pleas and the UN’s objections. It cannot be determined from the available information whether the US or Canada will again offer resettlement. Only one thing is certain: There are no confirmed details about the 40 men, and the two others are immediately before handover.