Canada ‘Deeply Concerned’ After Thailand Deports 40 Uyghurs to China

This photo provided by Thailand's daily web newspaper Prachatai shows trucks with black tape covering the windows leave a detention center in Bangkok, Thailand, on Feb. 27, 2025. Nuttaphol Meksobhon/Prachatai via AP

The Canadian government has raised concerns over the Thai government’s decision to return dozens of Uyghur Muslims to China this week, saying it puts them at “a serious risk of torture, mistreatment, repressive surveillance, arbitrary detention and forced labour.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly made the comments in a statement on Feb. 27, the same day 40 Chinese nationals, who Beijing says were involved in illegal immigration, arrived in China, as confirmed in an online statement from China’s Ministry of Public Security.

The deported individuals were among the Uyghurs who had been detained in Thailand for over a decade after fleeing there in 2014 in hope of seeking asylum, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency.

Joly said the Canadian government is “deeply concerned that 40 Uyghur refugees were forcibly returned to China,” adding that the Thai government’s decision may be in violation of international human rights norms.

“Canada calls on all countries to not send asylum seekers back to countries where they are at real risk of torture, forced disappearance and political persecution,” Joly said. “We call on the Chinese government to end its repression of ethnic and religious minorities.”

Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang face severe suppression, with an estimated 1 million or more being placed in re-education camps or other detention facilities. Survivors of the camps have described experiences of forced labour, forced sterilizations, political indoctrination, electric shocks, and other forms of abuse during their time in detention.

The United States and the United Kingdom also raised the alarm over the latest deportations. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called on the Chinese authorities to provide “full access” to verify the well-being of the returned Uyghurs.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms Thailand’s forced return of at least 40 Uyghurs to China, where they lack due process rights and where Uyghurs have faced persecution, forced labor, and torture,” Rubio said in a statement.

“China, under the direction and control of the Chinese Communist Party, has committed genocide and crimes against humanity targeting predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other members of ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang.”

U.S. lawmakers earlier this week had urged the Thai government to discard plans to send the Uyghur detainees back to China, citing the abuses they could face if they returned. In January, Thai immigration officials asked the detained men to sign voluntary deportation papers, but they refused.

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the U.K. “disagrees in the strongest terms with Thailand’s decision” given its “international obligations in relation to non-refoulement and the well-documented ongoing human rights violations in Xinjiang. ”

The United States has declared the CCP’s suppression of Uyghurs “a genocide,” and in 2021 passed a law banning imports from Xinjiang over forced labour concerns. Earlier that year, Canada’s House of Commons unanimously passed a motion recognizing Beijing’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims as a genocide.

Thai authorities in 2014 arrested more than 300 Uyghurs who sought to cross the border while fleeing from China. The following year, Thailand sent more than 100 back to China, and later sent a group of mostly women and children to Turkey.

The U.N. Refugee Agency also expressed concern over this week’s deportations, saying the agency was not granted access to the detainees despite repeated requests.

“This is a clear violation of the principle of non-refoulement and the Royal Thai Government’s obligations under international law,” Ruvendrini Menikdiwela, assistant high commissioner for protection at the U.N. Refugee Agency, said in a statement on Feb. 27.

Thai Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai told Reuters that the Uyghurs were returned in accordance with Thai law and international standards and that they “will be looked after well” in China because “they are their people.”

Canada Sanctions Chinese Officials Over Human Rights Abuses

Canada last December imposed sanctions against eight Chinese senior officials who it says were involved in “grave human rights violations.” Ottawa said the sanctions were in response to the Chinese regime-led repression of ethnic and religious minorities such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, and practitioners of Falun Gong.

“Canada is deeply concerned by the human rights violations in Xinjiang and Tibet and against those who practise Falun Gong,” said Joly in a Dec. 10, 2024, news release by Global Affairs Canada.

“We call on the Chinese government to put an end to this systematic campaign of repression and uphold its international human rights obligations.”

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that combines meditative movements with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After its introduction in China in 1992, an estimated 100 million people took up the practice by 1999.

While it is currently practiced in more than 100 countries, Falun Gong is banned in China, where practitioners have been subjected to severe persecution for more than 25 years, with reports of torture, forced labour, physical and sexual abuse, and live organ harvesting.

“Canada continues to raise concerns regarding human rights violations in China and calls on the Chinese government to uphold its international human rights obligations, including through the United Nations Human Rights Council,” Global Affairs Canada said in its Dec. 10 statement.

Dorothy Li and Eva Fu contributed to this report.