Detainee’s letter says return to China would leave him ‘like a slave’
Both Uyghur men at risk of deportation from Thailand have shared letters with human-rights groups saying they do not want to return to China. One wrote that he would be “like a slave” if sent back. Activists said the deportations would put their lives in grave danger, and human-rights groups said the men had recently been transferred to an immigration detention centre. The groups feared Thai authorities might once again yield to Beijing amid reports of torture and human-rights abuses against the mostly Muslim minority.
Marzeyya Kasem, who asked to be referred to by her Islamic alias, said her boyfriend — whose name is being withheld for security reasons — told The Guardian he wanted to go “anywhere else but China.” In a letter he wrote to her in July, he said he would be “like a slave” if he was sent back to China. “Sometimes I thought why I’m a human being. What I do wrong against China … no want to go back to China,” he wrote. Kasem shared the letter with a Thai rights group.
Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called for the men to be allowed to travel to a safe third country. “Previous Thai governments have kept Uyghurs in inhumane detention for years and then complied with Beijing’s demands to send them to China, where they were forcibly disappeared,” she said.
It remained unclear whether China had issued a formal extradition request for the two men. Chaipruak Doungprapat, Thailand’s national security council chief, told reporters that the men, along with three other Uyghurs who were still in prison, had arrest warrants outstanding in China.
Some people questioned whether the criminal warrants could be credible, considering that at least one of the men, Kasem’s boyfriend, was a minor when he left China. “If they are really wanted for a crime in China, why didn’t China immediately issue a [Interpol] red notice [when they were detained in 2014]?” Kasem asked. Kasem said she believed that because Thailand was criticised for last year’s mass deportation, the authorities were this time trying to establish a more credible legal basis for the move.
A spokesperson for China’s foreign affairs ministry said: “The cooperation between China and Thailand in combating cross-border illegal and criminal activities such as smuggling is consistent with the laws of the two countries, international law and international practice.” A spokesperson for Thailand’s foreign affairs ministry declined to comment.
Last year, Thai authorities forcibly deported 40 Uyghur men to China despite pleas from the men themselves and the UN. The United States and Canada had reportedly offered to resettle them, but Bangkok appeared to want to avoid upsetting Beijing. The UN has said the returnees’ whereabouts remain unknown.
The two men had been serving a seven-year prison sentence for offences related to an attempted escape from immigration detention in January 2020. They were part of a group of more than 200 Uyghur men, women and children who were apprehended by Thai police in 2014 near the border with Malaysia after they fled from China.
Since 2014, the women and children in the group have been released to Turkey, while the men have been deported to China in separate batches, drawing criticism from the United Nations and from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A photograph caption in The Guardian’s report, credited to The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images, says the pictured Uyghurs were taken away for questioning in Thailand in 2014 after crossing into Southeast Asia through China’s southern border.
The two men facing imminent deportation reportedly pleaded their case to Thailand’s office of the National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday. Relatives of Uyghurs have said the Chinese government was “paranoid about Uyghurs going to a safe country in large numbers and living together” and preferred to have them deported.
The Guardian described Uyghurs as a Turkic minority mainly from the Xinjiang region in China and reported “decades of oppressive and discriminatory treatment from the Chinese authorities,” including “the incarceration of hundreds of thousands of people in detention camps aimed at stamping out their cultural identity.”
A second photograph caption, credited to Mark Schiefelbein/AP, identifies a detention centre in China’s Xinjiang region and says treatment of the Uyghurs there has been condemned by the UN as a potential crime against humanity.
Beijing has defended its policies in Xinjiang as being aimed at poverty alleviation and counter-terrorism.