FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Repatriating Uighurs could come back to haunt us

Repatriating Uighurs could come back to haunt us

Beijing's crackdown on the ethnic group is creating anger across the Islamic world; Thailand risks a backlash if it sends refugees back to China

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon is sending out a very disturbing signal about the fate of a group of some 200 Turkic-speaking refugees who were founded huddling in a forest in Songkhla in March. 
It is widely believed that these refugees, and others like them who have been rounded up in other parts of the country, are Uighurs who had fled ongoing persecution in China.
Officially, Thai authorities are in the process of trying to identify the origin and citizenship of the group, whose members have revealed very little about themselves other than their desire to relocate to Turkey. 
Turkish diplomats have met them and asked them to cooperate with the Thai authorities during this process of verification.
Initially, the discovery of these asylum seekers in Thailand was big news for the local and international media. But they quickly lost interest. The Chinese authorities, however, are still following the case closely, according to reports.
“Life is so hard [in the Thai detention centre],” one female refugee told Radio Free Asia’s Uighur Service. 
“The food is bad, and [portions are] reduced day by day. There is no one who hasn’t contracted scabies there. They [camp authorities] won’t allow us hospital treatment,” said the woman, who is one of about 170 suspected Uighur women and children who have been held at an immigration centre in Songkhla since March. The men of the group are being held at various locations.
International human rights organisations and Western governments including the US and the European Union have come out to urge the Thai government not to repatriate the group back to China, citing concern for their safety. But little progress has been made in terms of getting a third country to take them.
General Prawit has said that if the group are identified as Chinese citizens, the issue would be an internal affair of China. 
“About their safety, I do not believe a superpower like China will treat them with violence when these people return home,” Prawit said.
His comments came after the Chinese consul in Songkhla, Qin Jian, said the refugees should be repatriated if they are identified as Chinese.
It is difficult to reconcile Prawit’s words here with the reality as we know it. So we recommend that he read the findings of international rights organisations and media on how the Chinese government treats the Muslim Uighur people in the autonomous region of Xinjiang.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Sek Wannamethee has said that identification of the group is being carried out, but he pledged that Thailand would respect their human rights. Perhaps the Foreign Ministry and the military need to get their story straight and start singing from the same hymn sheet. 
Both should know that blood could very well be on their hands if they decide to send the group back to China. Moreover, such an action could very well put Thailand on the radar screen of Islamic extremists and militants who have a global reach.
In recent months China has responded harshly to violence by Uighur extremists at home by launching a crackdown not just on the Muslims in Xinjiang but on Islam itself. 
The Uighurs in Xinjiang were prohibited from observing Ramadan this year, with Muslim students and civil servants prevented from attending weekly prayers during the holy month.
Such an attitude and policy is self-defeating as it creates resentment among Muslims not just in China but all over the world. Chinese authorities have made a grave mistake in turning this dispute with the Uighurs into a battle with Islam. If Thailand were to become embroiled in this pathetic, narrow-minded campaign, the consequences would likely come back to haunt the country. Bangkok can keep its hands clean by not repatriating these refugees to China.
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