The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok\u00a0is warning Americans of potential \u2018violent retaliatory attacks\u2019 Friday after a group of 45 Uyghurs were deported by Thailand to China in a move Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned in the \u2018strongest possible terms.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thai police and security officials said\u00a0China had given assurances that the men \u2014 who had been in custody for more than a decade \u2014 wouldn\u2019t face penalties or be harmed. They said at a news conference Thursday that all of them voluntarily returned after being shown a translation of a written Chinese agreement requesting their repatriation and declaring they would be allowed to live normally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Similar deportations have prompted violent retaliatory attacks in the past,\u2019 the U.S. Embassy warned though on Friday. \u2018Most notably, in the wake of a 2015 deportation of Uyghurs from Thailand, improvised explosive devices detonated at the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok killing 20 people and injuring 125 others as this shrine is heavily visited by tourists from China.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Embassy is now encouraging Americans in Thailand to \u2018exercise increased caution and vigilance, especially in crowded locations frequented by tourists due to the potential for increased collateral risk.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rubio slammed the deportations Thursday, describing it as a \u2018forced return of at least 40 Uyghurs to China, where they lack due process rights and where Uyghurs have faced persecution, forced labor, and torture.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018As Thailand\u2019s longstanding ally, we are alarmed by this action, which risks running afoul of its international obligations under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance,\u2019 Rubio continued. \u2018This act runs counter to the Thai people\u2019s longstanding tradition of protection for the most vulnerable and is inconsistent with Thailand\u2019s commitment to protect human rights.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We urge all governments in countries where Uyghurs seek protection not to forcibly return ethnic Uyghurs to China,\u2019 he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We call on Chinese authorities to provide full access to verify the well-being of the returned Uyghurs on a regular basis,\u2019 Rubio also said. \u2018The Thai Government must insist and fully verify continuously that Chinese authorities protect the Uyghurs\u2019 human rights.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thai lawmakers, activists and lawyers had raised the alarm Wednesday that the men were about to be deported, and after midnight, trucks with black sheets covering their windows left Bangkok\u2019s Immigration Detention Center, where they had been held, according to the Associated Press.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The news agency reported that it appeared the truck drove them to Bangkok\u2019s Don Mueang airport, where a China Southern Airlines plane was waiting, and then flew to the heartland of China\u2019s Uyghur population in northwestern Xinjiang province.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In a statement on Facebook, the Chinese Embassy acknowledged Thursday that 40 Chinese nationals who it said entered Thailand illegally were deported to Xinjiang by a chartered flight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It said the men had been detained in Thailand for more than 10 years because of \u2018complicated international factors.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n
The U.S. Embassy in Bangkok\u00a0is warning Americans of potential \u2018violent retaliatory attacks\u2019 Friday after a group of 45 Uyghurs were deported by Thailand to China in a move Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned in the \u2018strongest possible terms.\u2019\u00a0 Thai police and security officials said\u00a0China had given assurances that the men \u2014 who had been <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":36865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-36864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quickassetsmarket.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}