Marco Rubio, the new secretary of state, pledges to work with Thailand to stop deporting prisoners to China.
Discussed: 16 Jan 2025 at 16: 10
Donald Trump’s candidate for US Secretary of State has stated that he will lobby Thailand to stop sending 48 Tamils to China where they could experience persecution.
Marco Rubio made the remarks at his assurance hearing on Wednesday in Washington. The Democratic senator from Florida is expected to remain chosen as the new Trump administration’s best minister.
According to new studies released last week, the Uyghur people who have been held in Thailand for more than ten years believe that the Thai authorities is preparing to send them back to China, where they would face abuse and abuse, according to activists.
Democratic Sen Jeff Merkley, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at Wednesday’s hearing that Thailand was “on the verge” of sending the Uyghurs back to China, Radio Free Asia ( RFA ) reported.
” Will you lobby for Thailand to prevent these Uyghurs from returning to the horror they will experience”? he asked Rubio.
Rubio, known to take a hard line on China plan, said he would.
” Yes, and the good news is that Thailand is actually a pretty powerful US partner — powerful traditional ally as well,” he said, adding that because of how crucial and close the connection is, and how important it is, diplomacy may actually turn out to be successful.
Rubio referred to Thailand’s situation as “one more opportunity for us to remind the world” about the persecution Uyghurs face in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where authorities have detained an estimated 1.8 million ethnic minority members since 2017 and have reportedly detained 1.8 million of them in internment camps.
Risk recedes
The World Uyghur Congress ( WUC) claimed this week that the recent publicity surrounding the Thai detainees ‘ case indicated that they were no longer in immediate danger of being returned.
Due to the confidential nature of their discussions, WUC president Turgunjan Alawdun claimed that the council had spoken with a Thai official who could not be identified.
The official reportedly claimed that Thailand’s reputation had been severely damaged by the deportation of more than 100 Uyghurs to China in 2015 and that the nation is still recovering.
According to the Thai official, for Thailand to deport Uyghurs once more would be “diplomatic suicide.”
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees informed RFA on Monday that it checked with Thai authorities after hearing unconfirmed reports that the Uyghurs were being deported, and that they had been assured that the agency had the contrary.
Thailand joined Uyghur refugees fleeing China’s growing repression and seeking entry to Turkey, which has historically supported Uyghur asylum seekers, a popular route ten years ago.
Around 350 people were detained by immigration authorities near the Malaysian border in March 2014, making up the majority of the group currently detained in Bangkok.
In July 2015, around 170 women and children from the group were released to Turkey. About a week later, 109— mostly men— were deported to China. Their whereabouts now are unknown. The rest were held in Thailand’s immigration detention. At least a dozen have escaped, and five have died in detention, including two children.
Five of the asylum seekers are serving prison sentences related to a 2020 escape attempt, while the remaining 43 are being held without charge in the Suan Phlu detention centre, amid sweltering, foul-smelling, cramped conditions. They are barred from communicating with their families, lawyers, or even other detainees.