Suspected Uighurs must remain in Thai detention

BANGKOK: A family of suspected Uighur Muslims at the centre of a diplomatic tussle between China and Turkey must remain in detention until their true nationalities are proven, a Thai court ruled on Friday.
The case is being closely monitored because any eventual outcome could have an impact on hundreds of suspected Uighurs held by immigration authorities in Thailand since last year.
Those detained have said they are from Turkey and want to return there.
But Beijing claims they are Uighurs from its restive northwest region of Xinjiang and is seeking their repatriation, something human rights groups say could leave them open to abuse.
Uighurs, who number around 10 million in Xinjiang, are a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority who have long chafed under Chinese control.
The family at the centre of the case, who use the surname Teklimakan, were detained by Thai police in March 2014 after illegally entering the country along its eastern border with Cambodia.
Lawyers had been seeking their release from detention.
But a court in Bangkok rejected that request on Friday, saying the authorities needed “to wait for national identification documents from the two countries (China and Turkey)”.
“Now it’s up to the Thai government to decide which country they will be sent to”, the family’s lawyer Worasit Piriyawiboon said.