Bangkok blast puts Chinese Uygur diaspora back in the spotlight
They choose to flee China in search of the security of obscurity elsewhere, but they rarely escape international attention. Monday's blast in central Bangkok has again put the Chinese Uygur diaspora in the spotlight after Thai authorities said they could not rule out any group as possible suspects.
For decades, Turkic-speaking Uygurs have been fleeing their homes in China's restive Xinjiang autonomous region to escape persecution and violence.
But increasing suppression at home and tightening border control along previously popular routes have resulted in a growing number of the Chinese Muslims travelling via Southeast Asia to Turkey in recent years. Unlike earlier escapees, many of them were well-to-do and they tread the often dangerous expeditions with their family, researchers said.
In some cases, the Uygurs left China with fake passports and often had to endure long journeys by bus, boat and even by foot before arriving at a safe location in Southeast Asia, according to a researcher who has interviewed some recently.
Often equipped with electronic gadgets such as iPhones and iPads, many of the escapees were well-to-do people such as traders and small investors, said the researcher, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The escape can cost them dearly, the researcher said, with some paying up to US$15,000 per person to get to Malaysia.
"There was a family in which the husband is in his early 50s; I asked him why he would spend so much money and risk his family's life, he said it's intolerable [in Xinjiang]," the researcher said.
The escape route took the family of five three months, of which 20 days were spent on a boat and two months in the mountains. The youngest member of the family was 18 months old.
While Thailand caught international headlines by deporting about 100 Uygurs back to China last month, other countries in the region also face a similar diplomatic dilemma over how to handle the Uygurs.
Before a court in Jakarta last month sentenced three Uygur men to six years in prison on charges of attempting to join a local terrorist group, the Indonesian government had faced pressure from China to hand them back, according to a security analyst who refused to be named.
"But there was also resistance from within the Indonesian police that they know perfectly well that they [the Uygur men] are in serious trouble if they go back," the analyst said.
Chinese state media has claimed that Uygurs used Southeast Asian countries as a transit point in their journey to join the Islamic State in Syria. But the researchers and Uygur rights groups said the escapees often would settle in Turkey, where an extensive support network for Chinese Muslims has been in place for decades.
While Thai media reports, citing police sources, have suggested Chinese Uygurs could be linked to Monday's attack, most security experts interviewed by the said it was unlikely they were responsible for the bombing.