Another Uighur exile incident in Thailand

Boxun report from Thailand: On Friday April 29, 2015 in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo Province, a jail escape occurred. Seventeen Xinjiang Uighur stowaways were detained in a Thai police station. In the early morning hours they broke through the ceiling of the jail and escaped. Nine have been recaptured, the others are being sought. It’s reported that the 17 are illegal immigrants from China who crossed through Laos and entered Thailand’s Sa Kaeo Province where they were arrested by Thai border police. The Thai police said that they will soon recapture the rest of the fugitives.

Since the July 5, 2009 “Xinjiang Massacre,” tens of thousands of Uighurs have fled China. The number of people fleeing continues to rise annually and they keep getting younger. It’s very difficult to know the true number of refugees.

These Uighurs flee to Southeast Asia, but they’re not safe there. They live in constant terror that they’ll be caught and forcibly returned to China. They apply for political asylum in Turkey, Europe, Australia, the United States., Canada and other western countries.

In mid-March 2014, when Thai police raided a remote camp in the southern Thai province of Songkhla, they rescued from human trafficking more than 300 people suspected to be Uighurs from China’s Xinjiang province. These people claimed to be from Turkey. Uighur activists based in the U.S. said that these people were Uighurs from Xinjiang. The US State Department has asked Thailand to protect these people.

In mid-November 2014, approximately 100 suspected Chinese Uighur women and children fled a refugee shelter in Thailand. Thai authorities fear that they will fall into the hands of human traffickers.

Chinese authorities conflate Uighurs with terrorists and surveil, attack and control them. Add poisonous propaganda to the mix. Because their life in China is so hard, recently more and more Uighurs have fled. But crossing international borders is very difficult and few make it. People are willing to pay a high price for freedom.

http://www.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2015/05/201505010429.shtml