<p>Uighur asylum seekers detained in Thailand’s immigration detention facility have started a hunger strike, saying that they would rather die than be sent back to China.</p>

<p>Muslim people in Thailand have condemned the Thai junta government for deporting Uighur refugees to China, pointing out that it is a violation of international law.</p> <p>On Friday, 10 July 2015, a group of Muslim people in Thailand issued a statement condemning the Thai junta’s forced deportation of Uighurs, a Turkic Muslim minority from western China, back to their supposed country of origin.</p> <p>The statement was signed by Zakariya Amataya, a well-known Muslim poet in Thailand and Ekkarin Tuansiri, a political science lecturer at Prince of Songkhla University.</p>