Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Uighurs should instead be given urgent access to refugee status determination proceedings by the United Nations refugee agency.
“Uighurs forcibly returned to China face credible threats of imprisonment and torture, so it’s critical that Malaysia does not forcibly expel to China anyone the Chinese claim is a Uighur,” HRW Asia director Brad Adams said in a statement.
“Malaysian authorities should allow these individuals access to a fair process to determine their refugee claims, not ship them to China based on Beijing’s demands.”
The 11 Uighurs were part of a group of 20 who broke out of a cell near the Thai-Malaysian border in November by digging holes in the wall and using blankets as ladders.
The escapees were part of a group of more than 200 Uighurs detained in Thailand in 2014.
Members of the group identified themselves as Turkish citizens and asked to be sent to Turkey but more than 100 were forcibly returned to China in July 2015, Reuters reported.
Yesterday, sources told Reuters that the 11 Uighurs had been detained in northern Malaysia, and that China was in talks with the government on their deportation.
“They (Malaysia) are under great pressure from China to hand them over to China and not to Thailand,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.
However, Adams said past cases had shown that Uighurs returned to China are almost always at the risk of persecution.
“Malaysia needs to ensure that these 11 people are protected and not sent into harm’s way,” he added.
Adams also said Malaysia was one of several countries that in recent years had returned Uighurs to China in violation of customary international law.
Last September, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Malaysia had arrested 29 “Uighur militants” involved with the Islamic State.
Zahid said China had praised Malaysia for the arrests and that bilateral cooperation in security had since strengthened.
The Uighur people are the majority ethnic group in China’s Xinjiang region which has a Muslim-majority population.
China has been accused of rights abuses at Xinjiang, torture of Uighur detainees and tight control on their religion and culture. However, it denies any wrongdoing.
HRW said the Chinese government routinely restricted Uighurs’ observation of Ramadan, and that some Uighurs were required to give DNA samples and other biodata to obtain passports.
“China’s state media reports selectively on counterterrorism operations, but does not provide information on the number of deaths of local residents in such raids or the treatment of those detained in the operations, among other information.
“Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Uighurs have fled the country in recent years,” it said.
Sources: Uighur prison escapees detained in Malaysia, China wants them back