By Thai Newsroom Reporters
DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER-cum-Defence Minister Phumtham Wechayachai today (Jan.17) categorically dismissed news reports that Uyghur refugees in Bangkok will be returned to China shortly.
He said none of the total 48 Uyghur refugees currently detained at the Immigration Detention Centre will be deported to China on the upcoming Monday as earlier anticipated on social media.
The deputy prime minister-cum-defence minister today held a meeting of the National Security Council with the Uyghur refugees issue on agenda.
The Uyghurs who had quietly crossed borders into Thai territory, then been rounded up and detained by the Immigration Bureau on illegal entry charges since the last 10 years were recently told by immigration officials to fill out a form of personal history in purported preparations for their involuntary return to China.
The 2015 event in which Thailand deported 170 Uyghurs to Turkiye and returned 109 others to China drew vehement condemnations from international human rights groups. Many predominantly-Muslim ethnic Uyghurs have been arbitrarily detained and brutally suppressed in China’s Xinjiang region.
CAPTIONS::
Top and Front Page: A protester from the Uyghur community living in Turkey waves a Turkish flag during a protest against the visit of China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Turkey, in Istanbul, Thursday, March 25, 2021. Hundreds of Uyghurs staged protests in Istanbul and the capital Ankara, denouncing Wang Yi’s visit to Turkey and demanding that the Turkish government take a stronger stance against human rights abuses in China’s far-western Xinjiang region. Photos: AP /Emrah Gurel and published by Yahoo!News
Insert: Deputy Prime Minister/Defence Minister Putham Wechayachai. Photo: Thai Rath
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