Thai rights groups urge government not to return two pardoned Uyghur men to China
NEW YORK — Three Thai refugee and migrant rights networks called on the government Saturday not to send two Uyghur men held at Bangkok’s Suan Phlu immigration detention center back to China, warning that a National Security Council meeting could decide their fate as it did for 40 others last year.
The call came as a former lawmaker who has followed the case said China formally asked Thailand’s Foreign Ministry in late August to take back the five Uyghur men then still in Thai prisons, and that the council is likely to meet next week.
The Coalition for the Rights of Refugees and Stateless Persons, the Migrant Working Group and the Thailand Migration Reform Consortium said in a joint statement dated October 31 that the two men “have told their legal representatives that they do not consent to return to China” and that their lawyers have not been allowed to see them since they were transferred from prison on October 21.
“We are concerned that an upcoming meeting of the National Security Council may include an agenda item to decide the fate of these Uyghur refugees,” the groups said. “This is what happened on 27 February 2025, when a National Security Council decision led to the return of 40 Uyghur refugees from the same detention centre to the People’s Republic of China.” No one has been able to contact any of the 40 since, they said.
The two men were detained in southern Thailand in March 2014 with more than 300 other Uyghurs, one of them at 14, and spent more than six years in prison for a 2020 escape before a royal pardon moved them to immigration custody. Thailand’s Immigration Bureau has said they will be sent to China or a third country once the council decides. One country has offered to take them, a Foreign Ministry official told a parliamentary committee in September, according to the Peace Rights Foundation, which represents the men.
The statement cites the October 27 meeting between China’s ambassador to Thailand, Zhang Jianwei, and the council’s new secretary-general, Gen. Chaipruak Doungprapat, “only days after the two were moved to the detention centre,” as the reason the networks are “deeply concerned that the two refugees face a real risk of forced return.” Neither government’s account of that meeting mentioned the men, Közet reported on Friday.
Kannavee Suebsang, a former member of parliament who worked for the UN refugee agency when the group was arrested in 2014, wrote on Facebook that China “approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the end of August this year” seeking the return of the five men then in Klong Prem Central Prison. The ministry replied, he wrote, that the decision rested with the relevant authorities and that “the individuals’ wishes must also be taken into account.” He said he understood that a council meeting was likely next week and that the Uyghur issue “may be among” the items discussed.
He also published what he said were two letters from Uyghur prisoners at Klong Prem: one written in 2022 saying the writer and the writer’s parents could face the death penalty if returned to China, and one written in 2026 saying the writer was willing to remain in detention but did not want to return. Family members had passed the letters to him and given permission to publish them, he said. Közet has not seen the letters. Kannavee has agreed to speak with Közet but had not answered written questions by publication.
The groups said the government already has a legal route to a third country. Clause 8 of a deportation regulation that Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul signed on August 26 allows a third country or an international organization to request a person who faces a risk of torture or enforced disappearance, with that person’s written consent. The regulation, published in the Royal Gazette on August 27, requires the request to come through diplomatic channels within seven days of a deportation order and the transfer to be completed within 30 days.
The networks made four demands: an end to forced returns of Uyghurs to China; immediate access to the men for their lawyers, the National Human Rights Commission and UNHCR; respect for the men’s “free and informed decisions”; and resettlement in a third country willing to receive them.
The National Human Rights Commission found last year that the 2025 deportation violated the principle of non-refoulement and Thailand’s 2022 anti-torture law, and urged the council to reconsider returning the five Uyghur men then still in prison, including these two.
The Office of the National Security Council acknowledged but did not answer written questions from Közet earlier this week.