World Uyghur Congress, 12 October 2018

The World Uyghur Congress welcomed the recent release of 11 Uyghur asylum seekers in Malaysia this week to a safe third country after nearly five years detained without charge in immigration detention facilities. The recent decision comes after years of purposeful indecision from Malaysian authorities, who had been under obligation to promptly deal with their cases.

The 11 men were originally part of a larger group who joined together in Southeast Asia after fleeing separately from East Turkistan in 2013 and 2014. The 11 were held in Thailand since early 2014 in various facilities until a desperate escape in November 2017 where they tunneled through a wall and scaled the building using bedsheets.

Uyghur Congress President Dolkun Isa said in response to the recent news, “Although the result is encouraging, we remain deeply disappointed that Malaysian authorities dragged their feet for so many years.”

Desperation had also been demonstrated by a number of escape attempts and at least two hunger strikes in 2015 and 2016 to protest their poor treatment, challenge the legality of their indefinite detention, and bring greater attention to their circumstances. Part of the group took their case to a Thai court to adjudicate in 2015, claiming that their detention was prolonged and arbitrary, but were ultimately rejected.

Around 50 Uyghurs still remain in similar facilities in Thailand awaiting decisions from authorities there. These 50 were also part of the larger group—some of whom were transferred to Turkey and others transferred to China in retaliation in July 2015. All of those that currently remain have been in detention without charge for nearly five years in poor conditions.

Conditions in the facilities have also been aggravated by the long period of detention. In August of this year, one of the members of the group who remain in Thailand, a Uyghur named Bilal, died from cancer. A three-year old boy died in one of the facilities in December 2014 as a result of an untreated illness.

Multiple human rights groups including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International claim that conditions inside these detention facilities are so inhospitable that they breach international law, and additionally violate the rights of those detained.

Calls from the Malaysian Bar Association earlier this year echoed the calls from rights groups, arguing that, “The Malaysian Government must not abdicate or ignore its legal and moral obligation not to deport individuals to situations where their very lives may be in serious jeopardy.”

The Uyghur Congress continues to work on countless Uyghur asylum cases in 2018, given the unparalleled situation facing Uyghurs in East Turkistan, many of who have been arbitrarily detained in political indoctrination camps for their travel abroad.

The rest of the international community must follow the recent lead of Germany and Sweden in halting all deportations of Uyghurs to China given the conditions in the region today.