The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, to find out what has happened to 20 Uighur refugees who have been missing without a trace since their deportation from Cambodia to China on 19 December 2009. "We fear for the lives of these men, women and children because many Uighur refugees suffered violent deaths in Chinese prisons after deportation to China," stated Ulrich Delius, head of the Asia section at the STP, on Friday in Göttingen. "The United Nations is responsible for investigating their fate because the Uighurs were in Cambodia under the protection of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees."

Warnings from human rights organizations to the Cambodian government in December 2009 not to deport the refugees went unheeded. Just two days before their violent return, a speaker for the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected all such warnings as rash and unfounded. The Uighurs were handcuffed and flown to China because they had entered Cambodian territory illegally. "Their reasoning is absurd," said Delius, "because it is not possible for the Uighurs to obtain visas as political refugees from China, Cambodia's ally, and enter the country legally. The violent deportation was a violation of human rights by Cambodia. Article 33 of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees forbids turning away refugees whose lives are in acute danger."

Uighurs who apply for sanctuary in other countries are regarded as a threat to national security, or as "terrorists," by the Chinese security authority. At least five Uighurs, known by name to this office, who have been deported from neighboring countries to China since 2001, have been imprisoned and tortured. Another Uighur, Shaheer Ali, who fled to Nepal, was condemned to death and executed in March 2003.

The 20 Uighurs who applied for political asylum in Cambodia had fled following riots in Ürümchi in July 2009 because they feared arrest. Several of them feared for their lives because they were witnesses to attacks by Chinese police officers. With the help of the Christian organizations that usually smuggle North Korean dissidents to safe countries, they entered Vietnam illegally and then fled to neighboring Cambodia.

For further information please contact Ulrich Delius: 0049 - 551 - 4990627

Translated by Elizabeth Crawford