Silenced and Vulnerable: The Plight of Uyghur Refugees in Thailand and Pakistan

The death of a Uyghur refugee at a detention centre in Thailand and the fear of deportation to China of another refugee in Pakistan give one clues to the condition of refugees, who flee Xinjiang from the fear of Chinese persecution. In the former case, a 49-year old Uyghur refugee under detention, allegedly died due to police neglect, while in Pakistan, many refugees who do not have UNHCR identity cards have been warned by the police that they could be deported to China.

The context in which such incidents are occurring is the increasing assertiveness of China in ensuring that countries to which the Uyghur flee also follow their diktats. This is done by a combination of economic and political pressure. Over the years, sufficient evidence has been collected of how China monitors and conducts surveillance on Uyghur who flee Xinjiang in search of a better life overseas. This allows them to keep track of the comings and goings of most refugees. Increasing Chinese influence globally, makes countries wary of giving the Uyghur too much relief and Thailand and Pakistan both provide instances of what conditions they find themselves in.

Abdulaziz Abdullah, a Uyghur refugee from Xinjiang died of alleged police neglect recently at the Bangkok Immigration Detention Centre, raising concerns about the treatment of the more than fifty Uyghur refugees who have been held at the centre since 2014. His son, Muhammad Abdullah, who lives in Kayseri, Turkey, said in an interview with the Voice of America (VOA) that his family had fled Xinjiang because of the oppression and the repeated arrests of his father. Abdullah and his family fled China in late 2013 and, with the help of border smugglers, arrived early in 2014 in Thailand, where they were detained by Thai immigration authorities.

In 2015, Muhammad, his mother and siblings were among nearly 170 Uyghur women and children taken by Turkey from Thailand on a humanitarian basis, while authorities in Thailand repatriated over a 100 Uyghur men to China. According to Muhammad, his father and more than 50 adult Uyghur men remained in Thailand’s immigration detention facilities.

Reports indicate that Abdullah is not the first Uyghur to die in immigration detention in Thailand. He is the fourth Uyghur who has died in Thai immigration detention. In 2018, another Uyghur refugee had also vomited blood and died while under detention.

Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, has called for a full and public investigation into Abdullah’s death. “We have been closely following the situation since the beginning. The WUC has issued a report on their case and other similar cases,” Isa told VOA. “Thai authorities should carry out a full and publicly available investigation into the death of Abdulaziz Abdullah, end the indefinite and arbitrary detention of the Uyghur refugee group, release Uyghur refugees detained in Thailand and allow Uyghur refugees to access resettlement.”

In Thailand, where the public and many elites historically, have had relatively warm perceptions about China, the latter has launched a multitude of efforts to control the government and media. These include signing content-sharing deals that enable Xinhua to be picked up in many elite outlets, extensively cultivating the local business community, using Confucius Institutes, expanding state media in Thailand, and many other such efforts. Many of these efforts support the military, and, in many ways, the monarchy.

In the case of Pakistan, where some 3,000 Uyghur reportedly live, incidents have been recently reported where Uyghur refugees have been approached by the police to warn them that they could be deported if they did not renew their UNHCR-issued Identity Cards. This happened to Niyaz Ghopur, a Uyghur refugee in Pakistan and eight members of his family. Pakistani officers threatened to detain all eight members of his family, saying they didn’t have legal documents allowing them to remain in the country. Ghopur’s family had fled China in 2016, fearing for their lives. Soon after landing in Pakistan, they had received cards from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), declaring that the family should not be sent back to China, where authorities had been cracking down on the mostly Muslim Uyghur population in the far-western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

What seems to have happened is that that the UNHCR had refused to renew their refugee cards after they expired in October 2022. Radio Free Asia quotes Ghopur as saying, “We had gone there [to the UNHCR office] three or four times lately, and the staff said that they stopped issuing cards and would call us when they began to reissue them,” he said. “But they have not called us. They treated us well two years ago. They used to inquire about our situation, but no one cares about us anymore”. RFA learnt that five or six other Uyghur refugee families in Pakistan had the same experience, where visiting police and intelligence officers told them they would be repatriated to China, unless UNHCR renewed their cards. The Pakistani police threatened these Uyghur families knowing fully well that their only protection was the UNHCR card, or else they would be deported.

While Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim country, most governments have been allies of China and have therefore, voiced support for China’s policies in Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea, as well as at the UN Human Rights Council. Pakistani officials have also come under pressure from Beijing because of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship project under the Belt and Road Initiative to improve Pakistan’s infrastructure for better trade with China and to further integrate the countries of the region.

RFA contacted UNHCR’s head office in Geneva, Switzerland, to inquire about the incidents. Joung-ah Ghedini-Williams, head of the agency’s global communications, said she would respond after contacting the Pakistan office. Within a couple days, the UN Agency’s offices in Pakistan renewed the refugee cards for the Uyghur families in question, and Pakistan’s judiciary said they would not be deported.

Pakistan today is home to about 3,000 Uyghurs, who first began seeking asylum in the country when Chinese troops occupied Xinjiang in 1949. The Chinese government allowed some Uyghurs with relatives in Pakistan to immigrate to the country in 1963 and 1974. In the 1980s, under China’s opening-up policy, Pakistan became a hub for Uyghur Muslims making a pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Some Uyghurs settled there and set up businesses, others got an education, and some Uyghur women married Pakistani men. But after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001, China and Pakistan strengthened their cooperation, and Pakistan repatriated numerous Uyghurs to China. We thus are witnessing a new challenge for Uyghur refugees who face detention and fear of persecution not only in other countries, but from China itself. This is a function of the Chinese putting their economic weight to act as a political tool. This is precisely why the Islamic world has maintained a stoic silence over the plight of the Uyghur.