Thailand lets five detained Uyghurs challenge Chinese extradition request in court
Five Uyghur men detained in Thailand since 2014 will be able to contest a Chinese extradition request in court, Thai officials said, as rights groups warned they face torture if returned to China.
Thailand will allow five Uyghur men detained since 2014 to challenge a Chinese extradition request in court before any decision is taken on sending them back to China, Thai officials said on Wednesday, a move that human rights groups welcomed while warning that the men face a grave risk of torture if they are returned, Reuters, the Associated Press and AFP reported.
The five men were among more than 300 Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim minority from China's western Xinjiang region, who fled China and were detained by Thai authorities in 2014 near the Malaysian border. They were later jailed in Thailand for trying to escape immigration detention in 2020, and under Thai law foreign nationals can only be deported once their sentences are complete.
Two of the five, aged 26 and 35, were pardoned last month and are now being held at the Suan Plu immigration detention centre in Bangkok, while the other three still have about a year left to serve. The two released men wrote letters last week pleading not to be sent back to China, letters that were shared publicly and drew attention to their case.
Government spokesman Ekkapob Pianpises told Reuters that the Thai government had granted the men the right to contest the case, that the two men nearing the end of their sentences had been appointed a lawyer, and that the courts would decide their challenge. The National Security Council's secretary-general, General Chaiyapruek Duangprapat, told reporters the same day that the five men are subject to Chinese arrest warrants and hold no refugee status.
General Chaiyapruek explained the process as a judicial one rather than a political decision. If China makes a formal extradition request, he said, Thailand's foreign ministry will check whether the warrants are valid, and if they are, the case will go through the courts, with prosecutors handling it and the men able to defend themselves with lawyers. If the court rules against them, they will be handed over under the extradition treaty; if they win, their fate will depend on whether another country is willing to take them.
That distinction matters because of what happened before. Thailand and China signed an extradition treaty in 1993 that came into force in 1999, but requests under it must go through Thai courts. In 2015 Thailand sent nearly 100 of the Uyghurs arrested in 2014 back to China, drawing widespread condemnation, while more than 170 others were identified as Turkish citizens and sent to Turkey. Then, in February 2025, Thailand deported another 40 Uyghurs from the same group to China despite appeals from United Nations human rights experts to halt their return.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International urged Thailand not to repeat that history. Elaine Pearson, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, said previous Thai governments had kept Uyghurs in inhumane detention for years and then complied with Beijing's demands to send them to China, where they were forcibly disappeared, and she warned that the men now face grave risks of torture and other serious abuses. Both organisations said the two pardoned men should be allowed to travel to a safe third country.
China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters on Wednesday that cooperation between China and Thailand in tackling cross-border crimes such as human smuggling was in line with both countries' laws, international law and practice, but she did not give details about the fate of the five men. Beijing has consistently denied accusations of abuses against Uyghurs, including the mass use of forced labour in internment camps, accusations made by rights groups and the United Nations.
Thailand is not a party to the UN Refugee Convention, but it is bound by the international legal principle of non-refoulement, which bars countries from sending people back to places where their lives or freedom are in danger. That principle, and the court process now promised, will be watched closely by diplomats and rights groups, who have noted that a Thai ministry official told a parliamentary committee in September that both China and a Western country had requested that five detained Uyghurs be sent to them.
For now, the immediate outcome is a pause and a process: no deportation before a court hearing, lawyers appointed, and a judicial decision that will determine whether the men are extradited under the treaty or whether a third country steps forward to offer them refuge. After more than a decade in detention, the five men, and the wider question of how Thailand handles Beijing's requests, now rest with the courts.
More in China
Photo: The Manila skyline in the Philippines (file image)
ChinaPhilippines and China pledge to keep talking despite strained ties after foreign ministers speak
China and the Philippines have pledged to maintain dialogue and manage their differences with mutual respect after Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Philippine counterpart spoke by phone, even as Beijing warned Manila about politicians crossing its red lines.
Photo: The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China
ChinaChina’s Wang Yi urges political solutions over arms in Beijing meeting with Iranian official as Gulf tensions persist
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Iranian national security official Ali Bagheri Kani in Beijing on Monday that all parties in the Middle East conflict should focus on political solutions rather than resorting to arms again, and said China supports Iran in safeguarding its sovereignty and security.
Photo: The Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China
ChinaChina to send Middle East envoy Zhai Jun to Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia in November as Gulf tensions persist
China will send its special envoy for the Middle East, Zhai Jun, to Iran, Oman and Saudi Arabia in early and mid-November, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Monday, alongside separate envoy trips to several African nations.