原文标题：Thailand must not return five Uyghurs to China, warn UN experts
原载链接：https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/11/thailand-must-not-return-five-uyghurs-china-warn-un-experts
GENEVA – The Government of Thailand must refuse to extradite five Uyghur men to the People’s Republic of China against their will, UN experts* said today, warning that they were at real risk of serious and irreparable harm if returned.
Two individuals have even been transferred to immigration detention after completing their prison sentences and now await extradition.
“The mistreatment of the Uyghur minority in China is well-documented by UN human rights mechanisms, for example, in the OHCHR Assessment in August 2022, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and torture based on ethnicity, culture, religion and national security,” the experts said.
“International law prohibits transferring a person to a country where there is a real risk of serious human rights violations, including arbitrary deprivation of life, torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, enforced disappearance, and persecution,” they said.
Thailand’s own Prevention and Suppression of Torture and Enforced Disappearance Act prohibits return of individuals where there are substantial grounds for believing they would be at risk of torture or enforced disappearance.
“Thailand’s obligation of non-refoulement applies to extradition as well as deportation,” the experts said. “It applies even if a person is accused of an offence.”
Measures to counter-terrorism and violent extremism measures in China have previously prompted concerns from UN experts. These have included mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, mass surveillance, compulsory re-education, forced labour, restrictions on minority rights, and deaths in custody.
The five men now at risk are part of a larger group of over 350 Uyghurs who fled China and were detained near the Thai border in 2014. In 2015, Thailand deported 109 of them to China.
Back in January 2025, China requested the return of 45 Uyghurs from Thailand, including the five men now at risk, allegedly for illegally crossing borders. “International law guarantees the right of every person to leave their own country,” the experts said.
Subsequently, in February 2025, 40 of them were returned to China against their consent, despite objections by the experts. Their fate and whereabouts are unknown, and Thai Government monitoring of returnees has been largely ineffective.
Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission has concluded that those deportations violated the obligation of non-refoulement, and insisted the remaining five men must not be returned.
In November 2025, Thai authorities announced that the Uyghurs would be subject to potential extradition rather than deportation. It is unknown whether any extradition requests have been received or what charges China might bring.
The five men now risking extradition have been detained for 12 years – two of them since childhood. All five were convicted of attempting to escape detention in Thailand.
The five men have been largely held in de facto incommunicado detention for many years, in poor conditions, and with limited access to lawyers, family members, civil society or UN officials.
“We call on Thailand and other States to cooperate to resettle the men in a safe country.”
The experts have previously raised similar concerns with the Governments of China and Thailand.
*The experts:
Grażyna Baranowska (Chair-Rapporteur), Ana Lorena Delgadillo Pérez (Vice-Chair), Gabriella Citroni, Mohammed Al-Obaidi and Anjli Parrin, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
Nicolas Levrat, Special Rapporteur on minority issues
Morris Tidball-Binz, the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions
Pau Pérez Sales, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Matthew Gillett (Chair-Rapporteur), Ethan Hee-Seok Shin (Vice-Chair on Follow Up), Sabrina Mahtani and Nicolás Laino, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
