UHRP Welcomes State Department’s Visa Restrictions on Thai Officials, Calls for Immediate Resettlement of Remaining Uyghurs

For immediate release
March 17, 2025 | 10:00 a.m. EDT
Contact: Omer Kanat (202) 790-1795, Peter Irwin (646) 906-7722

The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) welcomes the State Department’s visa restrictions targeting Thai officials responsible for the forced deportation of 40 Uyghurs to China on February 27. UHRP urges the Thai government to release the remaining Uyghurs from detention, and for governments to make immediate resettlement offers with support from UNHCR.

“This is an important step to protect Uyghurs at risk. Thanks to actions of the US State Department, there will be consequences for any forced deportation of Uyghurs,” said UHRP Executive Director, Omer Kanat.

In a press statement on March 14, Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that the State Department is “taking steps to impose visa restrictions on current and former officials from the Government of Thailand responsible for, or complicit in, the forced return of 40 Uyghurs from Thailand on February 27.”

“In light of China’s longstanding acts of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against Uyghurs, we call on governments around the world not to forcibly return Uyghurs and other groups to China,” Secretary Rubio said in the statement.

The deportation followed years of advocacy urging Thailand to halt deportations and find resettlement options for the group of Uyghur detainees, who were held in prolonged arbitrary detention for more than a decade. Thai and international human rights groups, governments, and international experts repeatedly warned that the Uyghurs would face grave risks of torture, enforced disappearance, and other severe human rights violations if returned to China.

In January, UN human rights experts urged Thailand to “immediately halt the possible transfer” of the group to China, and for the Thai government to provide them with “access to asylum procedures and other humanitarian assistance.”

Thai members of Parliament urged their government not to deport the group, and Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission made repeated requests for protection and medical treatment. The US House Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee released statements in January and February, respectively, urging Thailand to allow resettlement.

Reporting by The New Humanitarian in 2024 revealed internal UNHCR memos acknowledging the risks Uyghurs faced if returned to China, and that the agency declined offers to assist the group. This inaction left the group vulnerable to indefinite detention and eventual deportation.

The group of 48 Uyghurs was part of a larger group that fled China in 2013 and 2014. In July 2015, 173 Uyghur women and children were released and sent to Turkey, but a week later, Thai authorities forcibly deported 109 Uyghur men to China. The remaining Uyghurs were left in indefinite detention, five of whom died, including a newborn baby and a three-year-old child. 

Read more:

UHRP Calls on Thailand to Immediately Halt Deportation of 48 Uyghurs, Uphold International Law, February 26, 2025

UHRP Welcomes UN Letter on Arbitrary Detention Cases in Thailand, Urges Immediate Resettlement, April 24, 2024

WUC and UHRP Grieved by Death of Uyghur Refugee in Detention Center in Thailand, April 24, 2024

52 Uyghur Groups Call for an End to Prolonged Detention of Uyghurs in Thailand, July 8, 2022

UHRP: World Refugee Day 2019: Thailand should free Uyghur refugees, June 20, 2019

UHRP: World Refugee Day 2016: Resettle Uyghurs Refugees in Thailand to Safe Third Country, June 20, 2016

Uyghur American Association urges UNHCR and the United States to work closely with Thai government on resettlement of Uyghur refugees, November 19, 2014