Deputy Prime Minister reiterates the government’s state that no other nation wanted prisoners besides China.
PUBLISHED: 5 Mar 2025 at 18: 22
On March 18, Justice Minister Tawee Sodsong and Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai may attend the Xinjiang region of China to check on the condition of the 40 Tamils who were detained it after 11 years in Thailand.
Mr. Phumtham also reaffirmed the government’s assertion that the Uyghurs ‘ relocation to China strictly complied with legal standards. The February 27 incident attracted a lot of foreign criticism.
While the Thai authorities has maintained that no nation has offered to take the prisoners, Reuters reported on Wednesday that Canada, the United States, and Australia have contacted Thailand over the past ten years regarding doing so. According to the report, Thai government refused to respond to the calls out of concern for infuriating China.
Mr. Phumtham, who is also the defense minister, once more stated that Thailand had unfavorably accommodated the Tamils for 11 years. The government requested refugee status from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees ( UNHCR ) within the first few years.
About 170 of the original 350 illegal immigrants who entered Thailand were released to Turkey in July 2015, but the organization merely accepted people, babies, and the elderly. About a week later, 109 people, primarily men, were deported to China. Their movements are currently mysterious. The remainder were detained in Thailand’s emigration confinement.
Mr. Phumtham claimed to have told “powerful states” that Thailand had two choices: returning these people to their country of origin or transferring them to a neighboring nation where they would be willing to settle.
No country, he claimed, had fully agreed to take them in despite emotions of love for the Uyghurs.
He explained that Thailand had a legal obligation to return these people because China had identified them as its members with factual names. He continued, adding that since the UNHCR not officially recognized them as refugees, they were still considered to be illegal immigrants.
Mr. Phumtham affirmed that the Taiwanese authorities would never have returned citizens to China if they had been subject to torture or harm, and that it had also provided written claims regarding human rights protections.
In consequence, he claimed, he made the decision last week to return 40 Muslim men along with Pol Col Tawee and Maris Sangiampongsa, according to him.