27 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Thailand to investigate the death of an asylum seeker who died in an immigration detention center in the country, where he had been detained for nine years.
The deceased, Mattohti Mattursun, from the Uyghur ethnic minority, died at the age of 40 on April 21, of liver failure in a Bangkok detention center where he had been an inmate since his irregular entry into the country in 2014.
Elaine Pearson, HRW’s Asia director, has denounced the situation of asylum seekers in Thailand: “Thai authorities are putting people seeking protection as refugees in grave danger by keeping them for years in appalling conditions in detention centers of immigrants”.
“The death of Mattohti Mattursun should sound the alarm to end this abusive policy of imprisoning asylum seekers and refugees for prolonged periods,” it added.
Mattursun fled China in 2014, where he suffered ethnic persecution, as detailed by HRW, and was part of a group that crossed into Thailand trying to travel to Malaysia: “In 2015, the Thai government forcibly returned 109 men and Uyghur children, never to be heard from again. A further 170 Uyghur women and children were allowed to travel to Turkey, their original destination. Thailand has since detained the rest, about 50 men, in squalid immigration detention centers, where the authorities treat them as illegal immigrants without any rights.
Living conditions in these centers, HRW has denounced, have been deficient for years, but the Thai government has not taken measures to improve their condition.