Bangkok, Paris, 27 February 2025. In the early hours of 27 February 2025, Thai authorities forcibly returned at least 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China, where they are at risk of serious human rights violations, including prolonged arbitrary detention, torture, and enforced disappearance. The 40 individuals were part of a group of approximately 350 Uyghurs who had arrived in Thailand in March 2014 in an effort to flee from persecution in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and had been arbitrarily detained in Thailand’s immigration detention centers (IDCs).
"After arbitrarily detaining the Uyghur asylum seekers for more than 10 years in deplorable conditions, the Thai government added insult to injury by forcibly returning them to China. Thai authorities must stop the forcible return of refugees and asylum seekers and act in a manner that is consistent with national and international law", said FIDH Secretary General and OPEN ASIA/Armanshahr Executive Director Guissou Jahangiri.
The deportation of Uyghur asylum seekers is a breach of the non-derogable international principle of non-refoulement and Thailand’s obligations under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, to which it is a state party. The principle of non-refoulement prohibits the forcible return of individuals to jurisdictions where they would be at risk of torture or other serious human rights violations.
Article 13 of Thailand’s Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act, which came into force on 22 February 2023, codifies the principle of non-refoulement, by prohibiting state officials from expelling, deporting, or extraditing individuals to countries where there are substantial grounds for believing that they would be at risk of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, or enforced disappearance.
On 22 November 2024, the United Nations (UN) Committee Against Torture’s (CAT) raised concerns regarding the effective application of Article 13 of the Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act and called for the guarantee of the non-refoulement principle in both law and practice, and effective procedural safeguards for those facing return or extradition to another country.
FIDH, TLHR, and UCL recall that over the past several decades, Thai authorities have forcibly returned refugees and asylum seekers to their countries of origin on many occasions, including when they deported 109 Uyghur men to China at the request of the Chinese government in July 2015.
Detainees in Thailand’s IDCs, including Uyghurs, have been subjected to egregiously inadequate and inhumane conditions, as documented by an FIDH-UCL report in October 2024. Between 2014 and 2024, at least five Uyghur detainees died in IDCs as a result of inadequate medical care.
FIDH, TLHR, and UCL urge the Thai government to ensure protection of refugees and asylum seekers in the country without discrimination, in compliance with its international human rights obligations and the 2023 Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act.
The three organisations also urge the government to ratify the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol to afford refugees and asylum seekers legal recognition and protection.