Detention of asylum seekers criticised
The death of a second Uyghur man who spent years in a Bangkok detention centre underscores the need for Thai authorities to end the indefinite detention of asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
Mattohti Mattursun, 40, died of liver failure on April 21 after being taken to hospital from the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Centre, according to a statement by the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). He had been detained for illegal entry since March 13, 2014. The location of his family is not known.
He was the second Uyghur to die this year in the notoriously overcrowded facility in central Bangkok. Aziz Abdullah, 49, died in February, reportedly of pneumonia.
The WUC said that Mattohti Mattursun (also known as Muhammad Tursun) reportedly suffered from severe stomach pains and vomiting in recent weeks. As his condition worsened, he was transferred to a hospital on April 21 and is believed to have died shortly after arrival, it said. The authorities have yet to confirm his death.
“How many more deaths will take place before Thai authorities act with humanity to release these innocent people who are merely seeking a safe haven?” asked Omer Kanat, executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.
“Uyghurs around the world are filled with anguish that these refugees have been left in misery for nine years, and the world has not lifted a finger to rescue them.”
Elaine Pearson, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said Thai authorities are putting people seeking refugee protection “at grave risk” by keeping them for years “in awful conditions” in immigration detention centres.
Mattohti Mattursun was among several groups of Uyghurs who fled persecution in China and arrived in Thailand in 2014, seeking to travel to Malaysia and then on to a third country. In 2015, the Thai government forcibly sent back to China 109 Uyghur men and boys, who were never heard from again.
Another 170 Uyghur women and children were permitted to travel to Turkey, their original destination. Thailand has since detained the rest — about 50 men — in immigration centres, “where authorities treat them as illegal immigrants without any rights”, Human Rights Watch said.
China has been accused of committing crimes against humanity against Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang.