Uyghur Held in Thailand

2011-08-08

Thailand arrests a Uyghur for illegally entering the country.

Authorities in Thailand have arrested a Uyghur fleeing China’s restive northwestern Xinjiang region, according to reports Monday as Uyghur exile groups expressed concern he could be deported home and be severely punished like many of his compatriots.

Nur Muhemmed was arrested by Thai authorities Saturday for illegally entering the country, Japanese newspapers reported over the weekend, quoting Thai sources.

The reports said he may have had fled Urumqi after Chinese authorities accused him of involvement in deadly ethnic unrest in the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in July 2009.

He was allegedly part of a group of Uyghurs that took flight from China in the aftermath of the violence and sought refuge with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Cambodia after traveling through Vietnam, according to the reports.

Twenty-two members of that group eventually made it to Cambodia, though most were deported to China and prosecuted.

Muhemmed was believed to have escaped from Cambodia, and moved to Burma and then entered Thailand illegally via the border town of Mae Sai nearly two years ago, according to Thai officials quoted in the reports.

The Thai Foreign Ministry and the Chinese embassy in Bangkok could not be reached for comment.

Concern for fate

Uyghur groups disputed the circumstances under which Muhemmed landed in Thailand, but expressed concern about his fate as they feared that Bangkok would also repatriate him.

Dolkun Isa, general secretary of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), said Thailand should not bow to pressure from the Chinese to repatriate Muhemmed, where Isa said he could face torture and even death upon his return.

“No matter who he is or how he got there, the reality is that Uyghurs inside and outside of China face various tragedies because of China’s long and strong reach,” he said, calling on members of the international community to prod Thailand to respect Muhemmed’s right as a refugee.

Thailand has repatriated a number of ethnic minorities in the past several years, including the Hmong to Laos and the Rohingya to Burma, where they may face persecution and mistreatment.

“It is no secret how dangerous the current situation in East Turkestan [Xinjiang] is after the Hotan and Kashgar incidents,” Isa said, referring to deadly attacks in the two Silk Road cities by Uyghur groups against Chinese security personnel over the past month.

“It is easy to imagine what the fate of a Uyghur refugee might be in the case of a deportation at this time,” he said.

Isa said Muhemmed may have been one of two men who fled China in March and went missing.

“In March of this year, two Uyghur men seeking help called us from Yunnan province as they prepared to cross the China-Burma border.

They asked for information related to the refugee process in Southeast Asian countries,” Isa said.

“Just two days after the call, when we tried to reach them, we failed. Since then they have been silent and I’m assuming that maybe the person who is facing deportation in Thailand now was one of them.”

Missing in Vietnam

Ilshat Hasan, vice president of the exile group the Uyghur American Association, believed Muhemmed was among two Uyghurs who may have tried to enter Cambodia while fleeing China but ended up in Vietnam.

“It is possible that he was one of the two Uyghurs missing in Vietnam in October 2009,” Hasan said.

Those men later tried to cross into Cambodia on their own, but ended up in Laos where one was apprehended. The whereabouts of the other man were unknown.

“I guess that the one who failed to escape has already been returned to China or is in jail in Vietnam,” Hasan said.

“The other one who escaped probably had hidden in Thailand. Maybe disaster has finally caught up with him this time.”

In addition to the repatriation of the group of Uyghurs from Cambodia, China also used its influence in May to convince Kazakh authorities to deport another Uyghur, Ershidin Israil, a former geography teacher, who was initially given refugee status by the UNHCR and accepted for resettlement by Sweden.

Source: Radio Free Asia (RFA).
Link: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/deportation-08082011175204.html.