By Josh Lipes and Shahrezad Ghayrat
U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio – the incoming Trump administration’s pick to lead the U.S. State Department – will lobby Thailand to ensure that 48 ethnic Uyghurs held there on immigration charges are not sent back to China where they would likely face persecution, according to rights groups.
The Florida Republican’s pledge underscores the potential impact he will have, if confirmed, over the next four years on ties between the United States and China. The relationship is under strain amid President-elect Donald Trump’s threats to slap sweeping tariffs on Chinese exports once he assumes office next week.
Rubio, a noted China hawk, made the comments Wednesday when asked about the issue by fellow Sen. Jeff Merkley during a Senate hearing to confirm his appointment as America’s top envoy.
“[Beijing] is seeking to repatriate Uyghurs who have escaped China, and right now there are 48 Uyghurs in Thailand, and Thailand is on the verge of repatriating them back to China,” said Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon. “Will you lobby for Thailand to not send these Uyghurs back to the horror they will face if they’re returned?”
Rubio said he would.
“Yes, and the good news is that Thailand is actually a very strong U.S. partner – strong historical ally as well – so that is an area where I think diplomacy could really achieve results because of how important that relationship is and how close it is,” he said.
Rubio called the situation in Thailand “one more opportunity for us to remind the world” about the persecution Uyghurs face in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where authorities have detained an estimated 1.8 million members of the ethnic minority in internment camps beginning in 2017.
“This is not some obscure issue,” Rubio said at Wednesday’s hearing. “These are people who are basically being rounded up because of their ethnicity and religion and they are being put into camps.”
Decade of detention
The 48 Uyghurs have been detained at Thailand’s Immigration Detention Center since 2014 after attempting to use the Southeast Asian nation to escape persecution in China.
They have been kept in poor conditions in the prison-like facility, barred from legal or social contact and denied access to healthcare, according to Campaign for Uyghurs, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
On Monday, a Uyghur detainee told Radio Free Asia, a news service affiliated with BenarNews, that, upon hearing news late last week that he and others might be deported to China, “we were deeply concerned and anxious.”
In response, the 48 Uyghurs began a hunger strike on Jan. 10 and called upon fellow Uyghurs living abroad for support, said the detainee, who spoke on condition of anonymity over fear of reprisal.
“We are appealing to anyone who can assist in preventing our deportation to China,” he said at the time.
On Tuesday, Campaign for Uyghurs warned that deportations would violate Thailand’s obligations under the Convention Against Tortureand its own Anti-Torture Act.
The group of refugees is part of an originally larger cohort of over 350 Uyghur men, women and children, 172 of whom were resettled in Turkey, 109 deported back to China, and five who died because of inadequate medical conditions.
Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 U.N. Refugee Convention, and therefore does not recognize refugees.
China pressures Thailand
Rubio’s comments came days after U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who co-chairs the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said that it appeared China was pressuring the Thai government to repatriate the remaining Uyghurs and hand them over “to be incarcerated, tortured and cast away in forced labor camps as the U.S. implements its transition to a new government.”
If Thailand gave into the pressure, it would be seen as unfavorable by the incoming Trump administration, he said in a statement on Monday.
“Forced rendition of refugees would also cast a pall on Thailand’s efforts to improve its own anti-trafficking record, given the prospect that Uyghurs will be sent to one of the Chinese Communist Party’s forced labor camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region,” Smith said.
“Thailand needs to abide by its obligations under the Convention Against Torture, and it should immediately provide the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees access to the refugees,” Smith said.
Previously, the State Department and Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said they have continued to remind governments, including Thailand’s, about obligations to uphold the principles of non-refoulement, which prohibit returning individuals to places where they are at risk of serious human rights violations.
No immediate risk says advocacy group
Despite concerns that the 48 Uyghurs could be forcibly repatriated to China, Turgunjan Alawdun, president of the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) told RFA that the advocacy organization “received news” that they were no longer at immediate risk of being returned.
The WUC said that because of the confidential nature of their communication, the Thai official cannot be identified. But it added that it had been working to coordinate a campaign for the detainees’ release with the European Union, U.S. lawmakers, UNHCR and rights groups.
The official said Thailand’s image was seriously damaged after the deportation of more than 100 Uyghurs to China in 2015, and that the Southeast Asian country is still recovering.
For Thailand to deport Uyghurs again would be “diplomatic suicide,” the Thai official said, according to the WUC.
Thailand has not officially indicated whether the Uyghurs will be protected from deportation and the WUC’s claim could not be independently confirmed. Thai officials did not immediately respond to RFA requests for comment.
The WUC’s claim appears to have been corroborated by the UNHCR, which told RFA on Monday that, after hearing unconfirmed reports the Uyghurs were to be deported, it checked with Thai authorities who assured the agency to the contrary.
Nevertheless, the Uyghurs must be released from the Thai immigration facility where they have been held for the past 10 years, Alawdun said on Tuesday.
“Although they are now safe from the immediate threat of deportation, having them remain imprisoned indefinitely does not align with international laws and regulations regarding human rights and freedom,” he said. “We must not cease our efforts to secure their freedom.”
The WUC has organized protests in front of Thai embassies on Friday, Alawdun said.
“Our main demand at these protests is the release of our imprisoned compatriots to a third free country,” he said. “We are demanding that Thailand stop unjustly detaining them in prison.”