US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced sanctions against an unidentified number of officials in Thailand for deporting at least 40 Uighurs to China last month, despite apprehensions they could be persecuted.
Rubio said in a statement on Friday that he was immediately imposing visa restrictions on current and former officials responsible for or complicit in the deportations. No Thai official has been named.
For years, rights groups have been accusing China of widespread abuses, including the mass detention of Uighurs, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority of about 10 million people in the western region of Xinjiang. Beijing rejects those claims.
