Mettohti Matturson, 40, died due to poor detention conditions. He had arrived in Thailand in 2014 and was arrested along with 450 other fugitives from Xinjiang. Five similar cases since 2018. Executive director of the World Uyghur Congress: “How many more deaths will there be before the Thai authorities act humanely?”
Bangkok () – The second death in two months in a center for Uyghur refugees who fled Chinese persecution in the autonomous province of Xinjiang and are detained in Thailand. Mettohti Matturson, 40, died a week ago due to liver disease and poor detention conditions, after nine years incarcerated at the Suan Phlu Immigration Center in the capital, Bangkok. It is the fifth death that has been registered in that center since 2018, despite calls from many sectors for the Thai authorities to improve living and security conditions and, above all, guarantee better medical care for detainees.
.Sources from the World Congress of Uyghurs (a historical organization of the diaspora of this Turkic and Muslim population) and the Uyghur Human Rights Project (a group committed to protecting their identity and rights), recently reported that Mettohti Matturson’s conditions had worsened, with severe abdominal pain and vomiting. She had also developed severe jaundice. The transfer to the hospital, where she died, was useless.
Unfortunately, his case is not isolated. Mettohti had been taken into custody when he arrived in Thailand on March 13, 2014, a fate he shared that same year with 450 people from the same ethnic group, including women and children, fleeing China. In July 2015, 170 of them had been embarked on a flight to Turkey, which agreed to take them in because of their affinity of faith, language and culture, but another 109 were deported to China despite diplomatic pressure and numerous organizations on the authorities. from Bangkok to back down.
The current government, heir to the military coup of May 2014, has been in favor of a closer rapprochement with Beijing, both to favor commercial and military agreements and investment in infrastructure, and to have less critical international support in terms of human rights. and democratic rules. The Uyghurs, like other refugee groups, are victims of these political and strategic opportunism.
“How many more deaths will there be before the Thai authorities act humanely and release these innocent people who are only looking for a safe haven?” asked the executive director of the World Uyghur Congress, Omer Kanat, upon hearing the news of the death. of Mettohti. “Uyghurs around the world are distraught to think that these refugees have been living in squalid conditions for nine years without the world having lifted a finger to save them.”
