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| A Pro-Uyghur protest (File Photo) |
By Catherine Putz
Meanwhile, Thailand buys three Chinese submarines and protesters gather outside the Thai embassy in Turkey.
On Thursday, Thailand confirmed that it had deported more than 100 Uyghurs to China. While such deportations are fairly routine, the sheer number drew international attention from human rights groups and the Turkic-speaking community, particularly in Turkey. In Istanbul, Thailand was forced to close its consulate after protesters stormed in, the BBC reports that the embassy in Ankara was also closed as of Friday. Protesters clashed with police outside the Chinese embassy as well.
In March 2014, Thailand detained over 200 Uyghurs who had reportedly been living in a jungle camp in Songkhla province. “Once Thai authorities caught them, they claimed Turkish citizenship, but China said that they are Chinese so there was something of a custody dispute,” Thomas Nelson, an independent researcher and author of Uyghur Update, told The Diplomat.
Last month the custody battle began to end. Roughly 170 of the Uyghurs were sent to Turkey after more than a year in detention. Turkey, Nelson commented, has been fairly hospitable toward the Uyghurs in the past–they share a religion, as well as ethnic and linguistic ties that stretch from Turkey across Central Asia into Xinjiang, in western China.
“Thailand has worked with China and Turkey to solve the Uyghur Muslim problem,” Colonel Weerachon Sukhondhapatipak, Thailand’s deputy government spokesman, told reporters on Thursday, “We have sent them back to China after verifying their nationality.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat