The United Nations refugee agency said it was alarmed by Thailand’s decision to deport the Uighurs.
Advertisement
“I strongly urge the Thai authorities to investigate this matter and appeal to Thailand to honor its fundamental global obligations”, Volker Türk, UNHCR’s assistant high commissioner for protection, said in a statement.
Turkey, meanwhile, criticized the Thai government for acting without consideration for the Uighur.
“This action runs counter to Thailand’s worldwide obligations as well as its long-standing practice of providing safe haven to vulnerable persons”, spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
He said they were put through a national verification process and “only had documents saying they were Chinese”.
The Uighurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority in China’s far western Xinjiang region. It said Turkey will continue to monitor their fate.
Thailand’s deputy government spokesman, Maj.
The Chinese government should also account for their whereabouts and well-being. Bahceli told Hurriyet newspaper on Wednesday.
“It is very shocking and disturbing that Thailand caved in to pressure from Beijing”, Sunai Phasuk, Thailand researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters.
There was no explanation for the discrepancy in figures, however most have been held in detention centers in Bangkok or in Songkhla in the country’s south since their capture, making it hard to track exact numbers.
“Thailand sent around 100 Uighurs back to China yesterday”.
Some have claimed to be Turkish and asked to be sent to Turkey.
Police allowed about 100 protesters to pray outside the consulate before taking nine of them away for questioning.
During the hearing, the couple produced photocopies of what their Thai lawyer – Worasit Piriyawiboon – claimed to be Turkish passports. “Or do you want us to keep them for ages until they have children for three generations?”
“But [the release] is up to Thai authorities”.
Several neighboring countries have also extradited Uyghurs to China in recent years.
He added that the 173 now in Turkey had been allowed to leave after lengthy negotiations between Ankara and Bangkok.
On Wednesday, Human Rights Watch called the deportation of the Uighur back to China a “clear violation”.
Uighurs who previously have been forcibly returned to China have faced arbitrary arrest and detention, and criminal prosecution, Human Rights Watch said. “By forcibly sending them back, Thailand has violated global law”.
Thailand, later defending the deportation, said it followed proper, humanitarian procedures.
Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, would not confirm whether the Uighurs had been deported to China but spoke in general terms about the issue at a daily news briefing in Beijing on Thursday, saying the Uighurs were “firstly Chinese”.
Protesters in Turkey, which has cultural ties to the Uighurs and accepted an earlier group of Uighur refugees from Thailand, ransacked the Thai Consulate in Istanbul overnight.
It also advised tour guides against using the Thai flag while travelling in Turkey and urged the Thais to avoid any protest areas.
General Prayuth Chan-ocha, Thailand’s prime minster, told reporters on July 9 that his country was “not part of the dispute” between China and Uyghurs and had received guarantees from Beijing that the Uyghurs forced onto planes late on July 8 would be treated fairly.
“I’m asking if we don’t do it this way, then how would we do it?” he said. Police in the capital, Ankara, used pepper spray to push back Uighur protesters who tried to break through a barricade outside the Chinese Embassy.
Advertisement
Uighur – who constitute around 45 percent of the population of Xinjiang – have accused China of carrying out repressive policies that restrain their religious, commercial and cultural activities.
