Dozens of Uyghur men who fled persecution in their native China only to find themselves detained in Thailand have entered the second week of a hunger strike in Bangkok. Their fast is a last-ditch effort to pressure the Thai government to halt what the detainees fear is imminent deportation to China, where they face the risk of torture and imprisonment.
The men, who have been in Thai detention centers for more than a decade, started their hunger strike on Jan. 10, two days after they were given “voluntary return” forms to sign, according to accounts from two of the detainees.
All refused to sign the forms, but they were then required to pose for photographs. These instructions set off panic among the detainees because the same series of events in 2015 preceded Thailand’s abrupt deportation of 109 other Uyghurs to China.
The Thai authorities have said that there are no plans to send them back, and denied that a hunger strike is taking place.
One of the detainees secretly communicated with a reporter and an activist, who shared his voice messages with The New York Times. The second detainee’s account was relayed by a family member. Four other people familiar with the matter also confirmed the details. The detainees have virtually no access to anyone except for monthly visits from a doctor.
Uyghurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims, many of whom live in the far western Chinese region of Xinjiang. Determined to eliminate perceived threats of ethnic separatism, the Chinese authorities placed the region under tight surveillance starting in 2014. Later, they detained as many as one million Uyghurs and others in internment camps and prisons, stepped up birth control measures for Muslim women and placed Muslim children in boarding schools.
The persecution prompted thousands of Uyghurs to flee. The detainees in Thailand were part of a wave of more than 300 who left China in 2014 using the Southeast Asian country as a transit point in a bid to get to Turkey, which is home to a sizable Uyghur community.
On Friday night, the men were still refusing food and drinking only small amounts of water, according to a voice message from one of the detainees that was sent to Arslan Hidayat, a Uyghur-rights activist based in Washington, who shared the message with The Times. The precise number of men on the hunger strike remains unclear.
Earlier Friday, the detainee had said that he had it “on good authority” that the Thais would hand the Uyghurs over to China by Monday.
In a separate message on Jan. 13, the detainee said: “We are desperately seeking help from those living in the free world. You all know what will happen to us if we are sent back to China.”
Separately, a brother of another detainee told a reporter that he texted with him on Friday. “It has been seven days since we are on a hunger strike. But they don’t care and they are not responding to us,” the detainee wrote in the text message, which was viewed by The Times. “This morning, we are requesting to meet the U.N. but they are not allowing us.”
Both detainees and the second’s brother, like others cited in this article, asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
The Thai immigration authorities have repeatedly refused to allow the United Nations’ refugee agency access to the men, unlike other groups such as the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, according to Bryony Lau, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.
The hunger strike has increased concern among rights activists about the health of the detainees. Many are already malnourished, have chronic illnesses like heart and lung disease, and little access to health care. Five Uyghurs have died in detention, including two children.
This month, a Cambodian former opposition politician was shot in Bangkok in broad daylight, making other refugees and dissidents who have fled to Thailand fearful for their safety.
On Friday, Thailand’s defense minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, said the issue of the Uyghurs had been discussed that day at a meeting of the country’s National Security Council. He said they talked about how to “strictly adhere to the laws, and do things without creating problems for our country and other countries.”
When asked by a reporter whether the Uyghurs would be deported on Monday, Mr. Phumtham, who is also Thailand’s deputy prime minister, said, “I only just heard this from you.”
Lt. Gen. Thanit Thaiwacharamas, the acting deputy commander of the immigration bureau, denied that the Uyghurs were on a hunger strike.
In a statement, China’s Foreign Ministry said it “was not aware” of reports that the Uyghurs could be sent back to China. It added that its basic stance was a firm “crackdown on any form of illegal immigration.”
The detainees’ plight has raised concerns in the United States and in the human rights community. On Wednesday, Marco Rubio, President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick for secretary of state, said he would lobby Thailand to not send the Uyghurs back. Speaking in a Senate hearing, he added that the situation was “one more opportunity for us to remind the world” about the persecution that Uyghurs face.
Angkhana Neelapaijit, a senator in Thailand, said she had raised the issue of the hunger strike with Thailand’s National Security Council. She said she was pressing the Thai police to allow her to meet with the Uyghurs, and plans to hold a hearing in Parliament about their situation at the end of the month.
She recalled how in 2015, as head of Thailand’s National Human Rights Commission, she was blindsided by the previous deportation of Uyghurs. The United Nations refugee agency has called that move “a flagrant violation of international law.”
At that time, protesters in Turkey ransacked the Thai Consulate in Istanbul, and the police in the capital, Ankara, used pepper spray to push back Uyghurs trying to break through a barricade outside the Chinese Embassy.
Thailand’s prime minister then, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, said that China had guaranteed the Uyghurs’ safety and promised they would have “access to fair justice.” But China’s state broadcaster later aired images of the detainees with hoods on their heads as they boarded a plane to China.
Omer Kanat, the executive director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, a nongovernment group, said that his organization later learned that a few of the deportees had received long prison sentences, but that the fate of most was unknown. “They disappeared.”
Muktita Suhartono contributed reporting from Bangkok, and Vivian Wang from Beijing.
