A 40-year-old ethnic Uyghur man has died in a Bangkok immigration center where he had been held since 2014.
Mattohti Mattursun died last week of liver failure at the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center, a facility that holds hundreds of foreign nationals including entire families out of sight in a trendy Bangkok neighborhood. Held since 2014 for entering the country illegally, Mattursun’s death has reignited calls for the government to investigate and end the indefinite detention of asylum seekers.
“Thai authorities are putting people seeking refugee protection at grave risk by keeping them for years in awful conditions in immigration detention centers,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Mattohti Mattursun’s death should sound the alarm to end this abusive policy of incarcerating asylum seekers and refugees for prolonged…
