BANGKOK, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Thailand will allow five Uyghur men to challenge a Chinese extradition request in court before approving their deportation, a Thai government spokesman said, with human rights groups warning they face the risk of torture if sent back.
The men were among 300 Uyghurs, a persecuted minority numbering around 10 million in the western region of Xinjiang, who fled to the Southeast Asian country in 2014, where they were detained for illegal entry.
The five Uyghurs were later prosecuted for escaping detention. Two are now near completing their sentences, government spokesperson Ekkapob Pianpises told Reuters on Wednesday.
“The Thai government has granted them the right to contest the case,” Ekkapob said, adding the two men had been appointed a lawyer and the courts would decide their challenge.
The three others still have to spend another year in Thai jail for their escape attempt, General Chaiyapruek Duangprapat, secretary-general of the National Security Council, told reporters on Wednesday.
Hundreds, possibly thousands, of Uyghurs fled unrest in China’s western Xinjiang region in 2014, following a wave of violent attacks that prompted a massive crackdown by Chinese authorities. Rights groups and the UN have accused Beijing of abuses against the Uyghur minority, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps. Beijing denies any abuses.
Asked about the extradition request of the five Uyghurs, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters that China and Thailand’s cooperation in tackling cross-border crimes such as human smuggling was in line with both countries’ laws, international law and practice.
Thailand and China signed an extradition treaty in 1993 that entered into force in 1999, but requests under the pact must go through Thai courts.
Human rights groups urged Thailand to halt the extradition, saying the men faced a grave risk of torture and other abuses in China.
“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,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Thailand sent nearly 100 of the Uyghurs arrested in 2014 back to China the following year, drawing widespread condemnation, while a group of more than 170 were identified as Turkish citizens and sent to Turkey.
Some diplomats and security analysts have linked that deportation to the bombing of a Bangkok shrine a month later that killed 20 people.
Thailand then deported another 40 Uyghurs from the same group to China in February 2025 despite appeals from United Nations human rights experts to halt their return.
(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Panu Wongcha-um; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Saad Sayeed)
