US says multiple offers were made to resettle Uyghurs before Thailand deported them back to China

BANGKOK (news agencies) — The United States and other countries made repeated offers to Thailand to resettle more than three dozen Uyghur men before they were deported back to China, where rights groups fear they may face torture and other abuse, the U.S. State Department said Friday.

The 40 Uyghurs, who had been in Thai custody since 2014 after fleeing state repression of their minority group in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region, were whisked away from a Bangkok detention center under cover of darkness last week.

“We have worked with Thailand for years to avoid this situation, including by consistently and repeatedly offering to resettle the Uyghurs in other countries, including, at times, the United States,” the State Department said in response to questions from media.

Earlier this week, Thailand’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Russ Jalichandra said there had been no serious offers to take the men.

“If a third country was really committed to take them, it should also have negotiated with China to welcome Thailand sending them to that third country,” he told reporters.

The State Department slammed Thailand’s decision as a violation of the country’s commitment to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and said the U.S. and other countries did not need Beijing’s permission to offer the Uyghurs asylum.

“The obligation to ensure that individuals at risk of persecution or torture are not refouled is not up for negotiation with the persecutor country,” the State Department said, using a term for the forcible return of asylum seekers to a country where they are likely to face persecution.

It added that a “number of allies and partners” were involved in the resettlement plans over the years but would not provide further details.

Russ suggested that Thailand agreed to send the Uyghurs back to China partially out of fear that Beijing would retaliate if they were allowed to be granted asylum elsewhere.

“The impact that Thailand would face from sending them to a third country would be huge,” he said. “It was unrealistic.”

China has imprisoned more than 1 million people, including Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups, in a vast network of indoctrination camps, according to U.S. officials and human rights groups.

People have been subjected to torture, sterilization and political indoctrination in addition to forced labor as part of an assimilation campaign in a region whose inhabitants are ethnically and culturally distinct from the Han Chinese majority.

China has denied all the allegations, saying its its policies in Xinjiang aim only to promote economic and social development in the region and stamp out radicalism. It also rejects criticism of what it considers its internal affairs.

Thai police apprehended more than 200 Uyghurs in southern Thailand near the border with Malaysia in 2014 and charged with immigration violations, and also detained smaller groups elsewhere around the same time.

In 2015, about 170 Uyghur women and children were released to Turkey, and more than 100 Uyghur men were deported back to China, prompting an international outcry.

The others had languished in Thai detention until Feb. 27, when just after 2 a.m. most were spirited away in trucks with their windows blacked out and flown to Xinjiang. Eight are believed to still be in Thailand and their status is unclear.

Human Rights Watch and other NGOs decried the deportations as a violation of domestic and international law, saying “these men are now at grave risk of being tortured, forcibly disappeared and detained for long periods by the Chinese government.”

United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk also said Thailand had violated international human rights laws and standards, and called on the country to ensure the remaining Uyghurs are not returned to China.

He called on China to disclose their whereabouts, and to “ensure they are treated in accordance with international human rights standards.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian fired back that Türk should “refrain from interfering in national judicial sovereignty” and denied China or Thailand had violated any laws.