{"id":1970,"date":"2015-07-28T03:02:23","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T03:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2015\/07\/28\/thailands-move-return-uighurs-china-massive-moral-failure\/"},"modified":"2015-07-28T03:02:23","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T03:02:23","slug":"thailands-move-return-uighurs-china-massive-moral-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/thailands-move-return-uighurs-china-massive-moral-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Thailand\u2019s move to return Uighurs to China is a massive moral failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Editorial Board
July 24<\/div>\n

AFTER A military coup<\/a> in May 2014 that converted Thailand from democracy to dictatorship, the country bade farewell to free expression and fair elections. Now, it\u2019s saying goodbye to its international obligations, too. There\u2019s no starker example of Thailand\u2019s legal and moral failures than its decision this month to send 109 refugee Uighurs<\/a> \u2014 an ethnically Turkish Muslim minority \u2014 back to China, where they will almost surely face persecution<\/a> and possibly torture.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Uighurs reside mostly in the far-western region of Xinjiang, but their roots are Turkic. That sets them apart from the Han majority in China, where Uighurs have been systematically denied their rights for years amid mounting violence on both sides. Getting out of China in the first place has not been easy for the Uighurs, but with Thailand and countries such as Malaysia and Cambodia<\/a> capitulating to Chinese repatriation demands, staying out is becoming just as difficult.<\/p>\n

Thailand\u2019s repatriation comes after a strong rebuke from the Chinese government after Thailand allowed approximately 170 Uighur women and children<\/a> to travel to Turkey. China is Thailand\u2019s second-largest trading partner, which makes it especially dangerous for the smaller country to antagonize its powerful neighbor. This month\u2019s repatriation is an unsurprising attempt at appeasement. But Thailand has bigger obligations it should keep in mind: As a participant in the Convention Against Torture<\/a>, Thailand has undertaken not to send anyone in its custody back to a state where the individual would face persecution. For a Uighur, China is exactly that state.<\/p>\n

Uighurs returned to China in the past have been subject to arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention<\/a>, usually followed by criminal prosecution on trumped-up charges. In this case, China has said that at least some of the Uighurs deported from Thailand are terrorists<\/a> eager to join jihad \u2014 without offering any evidence to support those claims.<\/p>\n

This month\u2019s move lowers Thailand to the standard of the very country it seeks to gratify: China is an infamous practitioner of forced repatriation, having sent <\/a>tens of thousands of fleeing North Koreans back to their home country over the course of two decades.<\/p>\n

Though it is Thailand\u2019s responsibility to uphold its own obligations instead of pandering to known human rights violators, China deserves equal censure. Thailand should issue an immediate moratorium on deporting not only Uighurs but also anyone whose refu\u00adgee status is pending. And China should provide open information about the well-being and whereabouts of those returned to its territory against their will. It should also stop twisting arms to make weaker countries do its dirty work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Editorial BoardJuly 24 AFTER A military coup in May 2014 that converted Thailand from democracy to dictatorship, the country bade farewell to free expression and fair elections. Now, it\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}