CIVICUS speaks to Rushan Abbas, activist, human rights defender and executive director of Campaign for Uyghurs, a US-based civil society organisation that advocates for the rights and freedoms of Uyghur people in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, also known as East Turkistan, and around the world. Campaign for Uyghurs was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
Forty-eight Uyghur men who’ve been detained in Thailand since 2014 recently held a 17-day hunger strike to protest against their possible deportation to China. Human rights advocates warn that deportation could subject the detainees to torture or enforced disappearance. International pressure is mounting, with the United Nations (UN) and the USA urging Thailand to uphold human rights and the legal principle of non-refoulement – the principle that a person can’t be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Concern about the detainees is growing ahead of a visit by Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra to China this month.
