Experts in human rights from the United Nations have called on Thailand to refrain from returning 48 Uyghurs in their custody to China, cautioning that they face the potential for torture, mistreatment, and “irreparable damage” if sent back.

In recent days, human rights organizations and certain Thai legislators have expressed alarm that the imminent transfer of the Uyghurs, who have been confined in immigration detention for over a decade, was approaching. Nonetheless, the government has asserted that such plans do not exist.

Advocacy groups accuse the Chinese government of extensive violations against Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group numbering around 10 million in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, including the extensive deployment of surveillance and forced labor within camps. The Chinese government denies any wrongdoings.

“These individuals should not be returned to China,” stated UN Human Rights Special Rapporteurs in a declaration on Tuesday regarding the 48 Uyghurs.

“Instead, they must be given access to asylum processes and other humanitarian support,” the experts indicated, noting that half of the group suffers from significant health issues.

Last week, Thai Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai declared there was no imminent plan to expel the Uyghurs to China, while the national police chief Kittirat Panpetch confirmed on Monday that there had been no government directive concerning their deportation.

Babar Baloch, a spokesperson for the UN refugee agency, mentioned last week that Thai officials had assured them that the Uyghurs would not be dispatched to China.

China’s embassy in Thailand did not promptly reply to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Incoming US Secretary of State Marco Rubio asserted during his confirmation hearing last week that he will leverage the US’s strong ties with Thailand to prevent the return of the Uyghurs.

Long-term Detention

The detainees were part of a larger assembly of 300 Uyghurs who fled China and were apprehended in Thailand in 2014.

Thailand repatriated over 100 Uyghurs to China in July 2015, triggering global condemnation and fears that they might face torture upon their return. Their subsequent fate remains unclear.

More than 170 others, primarily women and children, were relocated to Turkey in June 2015, leaving over 50 Uyghurs still in Thai detention. At least five of these detainees have since died, according to human rights organizations.

At that time, Chinese authorities contended that many Uyghurs fleeing to Turkey via Southeast Asia intended to bring jihad back to China, alleging that some were linked to “terrorist activities.”

Throughout the years, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Uyghurs have evaded Xinjiang by secretly traveling through Southeast Asia to Turkey.

Diplomats and security analysts indicated that Thailand’s 2015 repatriation of Uyghurs to China was connected to a fatal bombing a month later at a shrine in Bangkok that resulted in 20 deaths, marking the deadliest attack of its kind on Thai soil.

Thai authorities concluded that the assault was related to their efforts against a human trafficking network, albeit without explicitly connecting the incident to the Uyghurs.

Two ethnic Uyghur men were apprehended and charged with murder and illegal possession of explosives, and their trial, which has faced several delays, is ongoing.

A massive fire broke out on Tuesday at a Japanese space agency site while it was testing an Epsilon S rocket, television footage showed.

There were no injuries in the incident in the remote Kagoshima prefecture of southern Japan. A large ball of fire and smoke rose from the center of the Tanegashima crater, according to images from national broadcaster NHK.

“Something unusual happened during a firefighting test today. “We are trying to determine what happened,” the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) told AFP in a statement.

“No injuries have been reported at this time.” The cause of the fire is also being investigated. »

NHK said the fire broke out during a test fire that began at 8:30 a.m. (11:30 p.m. GMT), with the broadcast station about 600 meters away.

About 30 seconds later, a loud explosion was heard and what appeared to be a burning object flew into the sea, NHK said. The Sankei Shimbun newspaper reported that orange light from the rocket was placed on a vertical platform before the explosion.

Tuesday’s fire is not the first time JAXA has had a setback in its rocket program. In July 2023, the Epsilon S engine exploded during a test, about 50 seconds after ignition.

It was part of a series of failures by Japan’s space agency JAXA, including an attempt to launch the next-generation H3 rocket. Last February, JAXA successfully launched the H3, its new flagship rocket that was launched as a rival to SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

This follows the successful landing of an unmanned probe on the Moon in January, albeit on a bumpy side, becoming only the fifth country to achieve a “soft landing” on the lunar surface. In March, a rocket built by a private Japanese company exploded seconds after launch.

Space One’s 18-meter-long Kairos rocket blasted off from a beach in Wakayama Prefecture in western Japan with a small government test satellite on board. But about five seconds later, the solid fuel rocket burst into flames, sending a plume of smoke billowing across the remote mountainside as orange flames streaked the ground, live footage showed.

Burning debris fell onto surrounding hillsides as sprinklers began spraying water, in a dramatic spectacle that was watched by hundreds of spectators gathered in public areas, including a nearby beach. Space One said at the time that it had made the decision to “terminate the flight” and the details were being investigated.

Dozens of discarded bags float on the canals that run through Minh Khai town, whose narrow streets are littered with large amounts of plastic waste that has escaped from local farms and piled up in ovens where unused waste is recycled.

This plastic recycling “artisan village,” an hour from the Vietnamese capital Hanoi, is where some of the plastic destined for recycling in Japan, America and Europe is sorted. Delegates at a UN meeting in South Korea this week are discussing new global rules that could curb the trade, which was worth $3.8 billion last year, according to UN data. Stronger international requirements for waste imports will also be in place in Vietnam from next year. Southeast Asian countries have become major importers of plastic waste in recent years after China, once the industry’s largest, banned imports in 2018. Vietnam is expected to be the world’s fourth-largest exporter by 2022, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But the surge in imports comes as the country struggles to recycle its own plastic waste.

Other restrictions could slow trade, but large non-national companies could make it difficult to keep up with trade rules and recycling rates, experts and officials said. From processing to landfill

More than a quarter of Vietnam’s plastic recycling capacity is concentrated in artisanal communities like Minh Khai, the World Bank said in a 2021 report, noting that the capacity for recycled plastic imports stood at 300,000 metric tons.

This is down from the 420,000 tons of plastic waste Vietnam imported last year, representing an 11% increase from 2022, according to UN data, which does not account for the total volume. Vietnam’s environment ministry did not respond to a request for updated figures.

Researchers have found that plastic waste is not properly managed, both in the ocean and in Vietnam, hindering recycling. According to a report supported by the government WWF, only 30% of the plastic waste produced in Vietnam will be processed in 2023.

As a result, despite shipping costs, Vietnamese recyclers rely on high-quality foreign plastic waste, according to FiinGroup, a research firm. But estimates suggest that Vietnam recycles only about a third of its imported plastic waste, according to a study published in January.

This is partly because imported plastics are often mixed with municipal waste, making them difficult or impossible to process, said one of the study’s authors, Kaustubh Thapa, of China University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. A recycler from Minh Khai town is more optimistic. Chi, who declined to give his full name, said, “The amount of waste that is imported that cannot be recycled is usually about 5 percent of the volume, but sometimes it reaches 25 percent.” Most of the villagers contacted in person or by phone declined to speak to the media for fear of repercussions for their actions.

Much of the plastic that is not recycled is dumped in “unsanitary” landfills, with about 15% of the amount released directly into the environment and the ocean, according to a WWF report. “Transporting waste for recycling to locations that do not have strong recycling capacity raises questions about equity and sustainability,” concluded the research report written by Thapa and his team.