Bipartisan House China Panel Urges Thailand Against Deporting 48 Uyghurs Who Fled China

Thai immigration officers leave the Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok on Jan. 11, 2000, where Rahoual Miloud, an Algerian national is detained. Thai police said they arrested Miloud but had no evidence so far to support press reports that he was linked with terror suspect Osama bin Laden. Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Bipartisan lawmakers on the House China Committee are sounding alarm over the plight of 48 Uyghurs who have been detained in Thailand for over a decade, warning the Thai authorities against sending them back to China over the immediate abuses they might face.

“We are deeply concerned about Thai authorities’ reported plans to forcibly deport 48 Uyghur refugees to the People’s Republic of China, when third countries are willing to assume custody,” Reps. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the chairman and ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, told The Epoch Times on Feb. 25. They said the action, if true, would mark as a clear violation of international human rights norms.

“These individuals face a credible risk of imprisonment, torture, or death upon return to a regime that has systematically persecuted Uyghurs through mass internment, forced labor, and other grave abuses,” the two lawmakers said, urging the Thai government to “immediately halt these deportations and to allow the Uyghurs to resettle in nations where they will be free from persecution.”

The two dozen Uyghur men were among over 300 fleeing China who Thai authorities arrested in 2014 near the Malaysian border. Thailand in 2015 deported over 100 to China, then sent another group of mostly women and children to Turkey. Of the remaining 53, five died in Thai immigration custody while seeking refugee status, including two children.

Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang are subjected to heightened suppression, with an estimated million or more rounded up in re-education facilities. The Chinese regime has claimed the campaign is meant to counter extremism. Former detainees have described sexual abuse, electric shocks, and other torture. The United States in 2021 declared Beijing’s human rights violations in Xinjiang a genocide and enacted a law the same year banning imports from the region over forced labor concerns.

In January, Thai immigration officials asked the detained men to sign voluntary deportation papers. They refused.

Fears of their being sent back have only grown. A spokesperson for the House China committee said they believe the deportation could happen in two days.

The lawmakers cautioned Thai authorities against taking such a step.

“Moving forward with this action would severely damage U.S.-Thai relations, and the U.S. would be forced to consider all available measures, including sanctions, to hold those complicit in facilitating China’s human rights abuses to account,” they said.

Ranking member of the House Select Committee on the strategic competition between the U.S. and the CCP Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) (L) and the chairman of the committee Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) (R) speak at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington on Sept. 25, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

They added that the United States “remains steadfast in defending Uyghur rights and will hold accountable those who enable their persecution.”

The committee was the latest group from the U.S. Congress and civil organizations to express concerns over the issue. On Feb. 24, the top two senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and several committee members described reports about the imminent deportation threats for the group as “deeply troubling.”

“The United States has put practical options on the table to resolve this issue in a way that upholds our shared commitment to internationally-recognized human rights. We urge Thai leaders to engage with the United States on those proposals, rather than take this ill-advised step,” they said in a statement.

Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi echoed their sentiment, entreating the Thai officials to find a “humane, lawful resolution for these refugees” by working with the United States and allies.

The Thai authorities’ treatment of the Uyghur detainees may violate international law, United Nations human rights experts said in January. They said nearly half of the individuals suffer from serious health conditions, including diabetes, kidney dysfunction, lower body paralysis, skin diseases, gastrointestinal ailments, and heart and lung issues.

They called on Thailand to ensure the detainees have adequate medical care and legal access.

The forced return of Chinese nationals has been a persistent issue globally, with Chinese authorities boasting to have repatriated tens of thousands.

The Epoch Times is aware of multiple cases where practitioners of another persecuted faith group, Falun Gong, were under imminent deportation in Thailand due to perceived Chinese pressure.

Laura Harth, the campaign director for human rights group Safeguard Defenders, said they find the Thailand Uyghurs case “extremely dramatic.”

“Ten years of being held under the looming and terrorizing threat of deportation. ... The concern could obviously not be graver,” Harth told The Epoch Times. “If these 48 individuals are returned, among other risks they face enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, and other inhuman and degrading treatment.”

The U.N. Human Rights Office in an August 2022 report called for world nations to refrain from sending fleeing Uyghurs back to China. The U.N. Committee against Torture last July ruled against Morocco’s decision to deport a Uyghur activist Beijing had sought. The man, freed in February, has arrived in the United States.

Harth called on Thai authorities to “urgently rethink their decision” and uphold their international commitments to protect a group that, she said, has “already been through too much.”