For more than a decade, they have been kept in horrible conditions by Thai authorities. Now they will meet their fate in China. How long can the international community tolerate this?
March 3, 2025
On February 27, 2025, the world received the horrifying news that 48 Uyghurs were forcibly repatriated to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by Thailand. Despite the urgent request by the US Select Committee on the CCP to halt their deportation, Thailand has had no second thought. This is a shame, and it once again demonstrates the cruel ability of the PRC to recruit the complicity of foreign governments for its crimes.
“Bitter Winter” just recalled their story with a recent article, singling out their case as a perfect example of transnational repression.
These 48 Uyghurs had been held in captivity in Bangkok, Thailand, since March 2014, facing the threat of being sent back any time to China, from which they had escaped. Three of them were reportedly detained when they were minors. They were arrested by Thai authorities eleven years ago on the accusation of illegal immigration when they crossed the border to flee the dire situation in their homeland, officially named the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) by the Communist regime and referred to as East Turkestan by its non-Han inhabitants.
They were part of a larger original group of about 350 people who escaped from the XUAR in an effort to ultimately reach Türkiye, enduring untold hardships and harassment along the way. Many of them could not escape the dragnet of Beijing and had to return to China, where they faced detention and even death.
After more than a year in detention, 109 members of that group of 350 refugees were deported from Bangkok to China in 2015, against their will, sparking international outrage. Another group of 173 Uyghurs, mostly women and children, were eventually sent to Türkiye. Those who were not repatriated or could not find their way to safer places have been detained in life-threatening conditions in Thai detention centers and prisons. Five of them have died since, including a newborn baby and a 3-year-old child. Five were serving sentences of up to 12 years in retaliation for their attempt to escape Thai facilities. The remaining 43 were held at the Immigration Detention Centre of the Office of the Immigration Bureau in Bangkok, under appalling and unsanitary conditions.
Even if the cruelty of the PRC is well known, and it stubbornness as well, no one was expecting that at the end of the day those suffering people could be really sent back to their butchers. Yet, it happened. “Bitter Winter” collected the bewilderment and laments of so many Uyghurs in the diaspora that could believe what they heard, and some were moved to tears.
There are two things the international community can do no. First, we all should try to keep track of those individuals, understand their fate, and once more fully expose the CCP’s crimes. Secondly, we should stop tolerating this indecent support to a rogue state.
Source: bitterwinter.org
Comentarios