BANGKOK/BEIJING (Reuters) – A delegation of Thai officials and media arrived in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region on Wednesday, seeking to calm worries about mistreatment of a group of 40 Uyghurs who were deported from Thailand last month.
The government sent the delegation on a mission to reassure the public, Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra told reporters in Bangkok.
Thailand sent back the group of Uyghurs in a secretive pre-dawn operation that drew a sharp rebuke from Western countries. The United States last week hit unnamed Thai officials with visa sanctions over the deportation.
Rights groups accuse Beijing of widespread abuses of Uyghurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority numbering about 10 million in the Xinjiang region. Beijing denies any abuse and has accused Western countries of interference and of peddling lies.
The Thai government, which said it deported the Uyghurs because they had been in detention for a decade, has repeatedly said that it has received reassurance from China over Uyghur safety.
Reuters reported this month that Canada and the United States had offered to resettle the Uyghurs who had been returned to China, but that Bangkok feared upsetting China. Thailand said it had received no concrete offers, however.
The 40 people deported were from a group of 300 Uyghurs who fled China and were arrested in 2014 in Thailand. Some were sent back to China, others to Turkey and the rest kept in Thai custody until last month’s deportation.
“If any country wants anything more or wants clarity, we are happy to provide it … there is nothing we cannot disclose. It only depends on time,” Paetongtarn said.
Her government said on Tuesday that only five of the 40 Uyghurs will be made available during the visit.
China played down the significance of the mission, giving no details.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesperson, Mao Ning, reiterated that the repatriation had been a “normal law enforcement cooperation” with Thailand. She added that the rights of those concerned were being observed according to international laws.
Among the 40 deported Uyghurs, most have already returned home, while a few who were previously ill were still receiving treatment in hospitals, Thailand’s defence ministry said in a separate statement on Wednesday, citing a briefing from Chinese officials.
The delegation, accompanied by officials from China’s public security ministry, was expected to form two groups, according to Thai government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsub.
One would visit the Uyghur returnees at their “private residences” about 100-200 km (60-125 miles) from the city of Kashgar, on Wednesday afternoon.
The other group would speak to Uyghurs more than 500 km away via a video call, and also visit local villages, a mosque and speak with Islamic religious leaders, Jirayu said.
(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng and Panarat Thepgumpanat in Bangkok and Colleen Howe in Beijing; Writing by Liz Lee; Editing by Frances Kerry)
