The United States has imposed visa sanctions on several Thai officials over the surprise deportation of 40 Uyghurs back to China last month, a rare instance of punishment for countries that have repatriated members of the persecuted Muslim minority despite warnings that they might face torture and long-term imprisonment upon their return.
The visa restrictions could limit the ability of former and current Thai officials responsible for, or complicit in, the forced return of Uyghurs, to travel to the United States. The State Department did not disclose the officials’ names, citing confidentiality.
“We are committed to combating China’s efforts to pressure governments to forcibly return Uyghurs and other groups to China, where they are subject to torture and enforced disappearances,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Friday.
The move came a day after the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning the deportation and calling on Thailand to “halt any further forced returns of refugees to countries where their lives are at risk.”
The dual announcements could complicate matters for the Thai government at a tricky time. The Thai authorities are trying to ward off potential tariffs from the United States, with which the country has a $35 billion trade deficit. They are also trying to wrap up a free-trade agreement with the European Union.
China has used its power and influence to silence its critics abroad and pressure governments to repatriate citizens fleeing persecution. In recent years, the government has 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.
Julian Ku, a Hofstra University law professor who is a close observer of U.S. policy on Uyghurs, said on social media that the visa restriction policy was “a pretty dramatic step,” and that he could not “recall this kind of sanction on third-party countries before.”
Thailand’s vice minister for foreign affairs said this month that the deportation of the Uyghurs was in the country’s best interest because of the possibility of retaliation from Beijing if they were sent elsewhere. He said that some countries had offered to resettle the Uyghurs, but he described the offers as “unrealistic” given that resettling them would not shield Thailand from a potential fallout with China.
Global Times, a state-owned newspaper in China, denounced the U.S. visa policy as “hypocritical meddling in China’s internal affairs under the guise of human rights.”
