US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday sharply rebuked Thailand for deporting at least 40 Uyghurs to China, where Washington claims the ethnic minority is under genocide.
Contrary to the warnings of UN human rights officials, who called for Thailand to stop the repatriation because of the risk of torture and abuse, the Southeast Asian country went ahead with the deportation. The Uyghurs were held in Thailand for a decade.
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We strongly denounce Thailand’s forced repatriation of a minimum of 40 Uyghurs to China, where they are denied rights under due process and have already suffered persecution, forced labor, and torture,” Rubio stated in a release. Rubio warned Thailand’s actions were likely to constitute a breach of Thailand’s obligation under the United Nations Convention Against Torture and urged Thai officials to protect the rights of the Uyghurs.
The 10 million Uyghur people of China’s Xinjiang province have long been under what Western countries and human rights groups have characterized as systematic oppression. The US officially designated Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide in 2021, a characterization preserved by the Biden administration. China, though, denies these allegations and says its “vocational training centers” are to fight extremism.
Media on Thursday photographed trucks with veiled windows exiting a Bangkok detention facility where 48 Uyghurs were detained. Flight logs revealed an unscheduled China Southern Airlines flight departed Thailand for Xinjiang that morning.
Although Thailand’s defense minister claimed that China had guaranteed just treatment of the deported Uyghurs, suspicions persist. China’s embassy justified the action, labeling it as legal and rebuffing foreign interference in its domestic affairs.
