Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai says he and Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong will visit the Xinjiang region of China on March 18 to check on the condition of the 40 Uyghurs who were deported there after 11 years in detention in Thailand.
Mr Phumtham on Wednesday also repeated the government’s position that its repatriation of the Uyghurs to China adhered strictly to legal requirements. The action on Feb 27 drew widespread international criticism.
While the Thai government has maintained that no country offered to take the detainees, Reuters reported on Wednesday that over the past decade, Canada, the United States and Australia had approached Thailand about doing so. However, Thai authorities did not act on the requests for fear of angering China, the report said.
Mr Phumtham, who is also the defence minister, reiterated that Thailand had accommodated the Uyghurs for 11 years without major issues. The government sought assistance from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to grant them refugee status in the first few years.
Of the original group of about 350 who had entered Thailand illegally, about 170 were released to Turkey in July 2015, but it accepted only women, children and the elderly. About a week later, 109 — mostly men — were deported to China. Their whereabouts now are unknown. The rest were kept in immigration detention in Thailand.
Mr Phumtham said he told “powerful countries” that Thailand had two options: repatriating these individuals to their country of origin or sending them to a third country willing to accept them.
However, despite expressions of sympathy for the Uyghurs, no nation had formally agreed to take them in, he said.
He explained that since China had identified these individuals as its citizens with verifiable addresses, Thailand had a legal obligation to return them. The UNHCR, he added, never officially designated them as refugees, so they were still classified as illegal immigrants.
Mr Phumtham affirmed that the government would have never sent anyone back to China if they were likely to be tortured or harmed, adding that the Chinese government provided written assurances regarding human rights protections.
Consequently, he said, he decided, along with Pol Col Tawee and Foreign Affairs Minister Maris Sangiampongsa, to repatriate 40 Uyghur men last week.
