Thailand Defends Its Decision to Forcibly Return Uighur Migrants to China

[CrazyExpat]

The move has been condemned by the U.N., Washington and human-rights groups

Thailand’s junta government has defended the forcible return of more than 100 Uighur migrants to China despite their fears of persecution.

“Thailand has worked with China and Turkey to solve the Uighur Muslim problem,” Colonel Weerachon Sukhondhapatipak, deputy spokesman for the Thai government, told reporters Thursday. “We have sent them back to China after verifying their nationality.”

The move has been condemned by the U.N., Washington and human-rights groups, and led to violent scenes in Turkey when pro-Uighur protesters attacked the Thai consulate in Istanbul with clubs and rocks.

Uighurs are a Muslim minority in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang, but they are ethnically, culturally and geographically closer to the Turkic peoples of Central Asia than to the Han — China’s dominant ethnic group. Thousands have fled the escalating violence and perceived abuses in Xinjiang in recent years.

 

https://time.com/3952498/china-uighur-xinjiang-deportations-turkey-thailand-human-rights/