Freed from prison by a royal act of clemency, the men wait in the Bangkok immigration center from which 40 compatriots were secretly sent back to Beijing in 2025.
by Ruth Ingram
Last year, ignoring international outcry and bowing to pressure from Beijing, Thai authorities took 40 Uyghur men seeking refuge in the free world from the jail where they had been held for more than ten years and, under cover of darkness, forcibly returned them to China.
Two of the group’s former cellmates are now facing the same fate.
While last year’s batch of Uyghurs was being returned to their homeland, the pair were in a Thai prison serving a seven-year sentence for trying to escape in January 2020.
Following a recent royal pardon marking Queen Suthida’s birthday, they were transferred to Bangkok’s Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center to await a decision on their future. This was the same center from which their former compatriots were piled into trucks and disappeared at night.
Human rights groups are now pressing for their release to a third country, while Beijing is insisting they be returned home.
Since their transfer on October 27, 2026, they have been held incommunicado, and all requests by human rights groups and lawyers to see them have been deferred. At least one country has offered to take them.
Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, said: “Previous Thai governments have kept Uyghurs in inhumane detention for years and then complied with Beijing’s demands to send them to China, where they were forcibly disappeared.”
In a recent statement, she urged Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul to “end forced returns to China and allow the two Uyghur men to travel to a safe third country.”
Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said: “Thai authorities must immediately halt any plans to forcibly return these two Uyghur men to China, where they face a real risk of torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance. Thailand must not repeat last year’s unlawful deportation of 40 Uyghurs, who were forced back to danger in China.”
Under Thai immigration law, these men will be deported to China unless they object, which, their lawyers say, they do vigorously. Refoulement, the return of people to a country where they could be at risk of torture or persecution, is prohibited by international conventions Thailand has signed.
Inconsistencies and tragedy have plagued the treatment of the large group of 300 or so Uyghurs who were arrested by Thai authorities in 2014, after being smuggled out of China over its southern border, and charged with immigration violations.
Türkiye had agreed to accept them all, but Thailand released only 173 of them, the women and children, to be sent there in July 2015.
One hundred and nine members of the group were forcibly sent to China. A remnant of around 53 stayed behind to languish in Thai jails. Over the following years, five of the group died in detention, including an infant and Abdullah Abduweli, a three-year-old.
One of the pair was said to have been 14 when he was first apprehended. Both his mother and father were on the 2015 flight that repatriated 109 Uyghurs to China. At the time, Chinese authorities described them as “members of smuggling rings” and “those engaged in terrorist activities within China” with “plans to join terrorist organizations and participate in jihad.” Both men have told their lawyers they fled because of constant surveillance and unannounced visits by the authorities.
Nyrola Elimä, an independent researcher based in Sweden who has followed the men’s cases since 2022, has said that the men fear what will happen to them if they are returned.
Yalkun Uluyol, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told “Bitter Winter” that the Thai government’s repeated and blatant violations of international law through the deportation of Uyghurs to China were “unacceptable.”
“Under no circumstances should the two Uyghur men, or other Uyghurs who remain behind bars in Thailand or are seeking refuge elsewhere in the world, be sent to China, where they face enforced disappearance, torture, and other inhumane treatment.”
He urged Thai authorities to grant UNHCR access to the men to determine their refugee status and allow them to resettle in a safe third country.
Rahima Mahmut, CEO of the Uyghur rights group Stop Uyghur Genocide, told “Bitter Winter” that the men’s lives would be at stake if they were repatriated.
She said: “I strongly condemn any attempt to forcibly return these two Uyghurs to China, where they face a grave risk of arbitrary detention, torture and persecution.”
She hoped the royal pardon would “be a moment of hope, not a pathway to further suffering.”
“I urgently appeal to the Thai authorities to uphold their humanitarian and international obligations and allow these men to be resettled safely in a third country.”
She is “extremely worried” for the safety of the five Uyghur men remaining in Thailand. “We cannot forget the 40 Uyghur men forcibly returned to China in February 2025. More than 20 months later, their whereabouts and fate remain unknown, with no independent verification of their safety or contact with their families.”
“I fear these remaining detainees could suffer the same fate. We cannot allow another tragedy to unfold before our eyes.”
The other three Uyghur men are confined in Klong Prem maximum-security prison, and what will happen to them is yet to be decided.
According to news just in from Reuters, the five men will be allowed to challenge the Chinese extradition request in court before their deportation is approved.
“The Thai government has granted them the right to contest the case,” government spokesperson Ekkapob Pianpises told Reuters on November 4.
Rahima Mahmut welcomes the news but is skeptical that the men will receive a fair hearing. She told “Bitter Winter”: “I have serious doubts about the fairness and independence of Thailand’s judiciary.”
She said she knew that China was “behind their prolonged ordeal,” and that “Thailand has repeatedly bowed to Beijing’s pressure, most shamefully with the forced return of 40 Uyghurs last February.”
“After so many years of suffering, these men deserve immediate resettlement in a safe third country, not further uncertainty and the threat of persecution,” she said.
Ruth Ingram is a researcher who has written extensively for the Central Asia-Caucasus publication, Institute of War and Peace Reporting, the Guardian Weekly newspaper, The Diplomat, and other publications.
