Members of exiled Chinese church detained in Thailand
BANGKOK, Thailand — More than 60 selfexiled members of a Chinese Christian church who were detained in Thailand paid fines for overstaying their visas but remained in police custody Saturday uncertain about their legal status amid fears they would be deported against their will to their home country, where they face possible persecution.
The 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church were taken to court Friday in the resort city of Pattaya after being detained a day earlier by Thai immigration authorities. The 32 members of the group considered to be adults were charged with overstaying their visas, said Col. Tawee Kutthalaeng, chief of the Pattaya-area Nong Prue police station. Two American citizens who were with the group and briefly held had not been placed under arrest, he said.
After being fined, the church members had expected to be released to be able to return to where they had been staying in the area, said Deana Brown, one of two American supporters who accompanied them. Brown said she has been working to resettle the church members in Tyler, Texas, where her organization is based.
However, they were put on two buses which first took them to the Pattaya office of the immigration police and then drove them to Bangkok for what a police officer told The Associated Press was normal processing of their case.
The drive under police escort from Pattaya to Bangkok, which would normally take about two hours, instead took closer to five because the passengers forced the buses to stop en route and disembarked by the roadside, saying they feared they were being driven to Bangkok’s international airport to be repatriated.
There were grounds for their skepticism. In 2015, Thailand sent 109 members of the Muslim Uyghur minority back to China against their will despite fears they would face official persecution and possible torture. The U.N. refugee agency at the time called Thailand’s action “a flagrant violation of international law,” and the United States also condemned the deportations.
Only after receiving reassurances by phone did the Chinese church members continue their journey, arriving early Saturday morning at a police facility known as the Police Club in northern Bangkok that has space for large numbers of detainees. The main Immigration Detention Center in the middle of Bangkok, where some detainees have been stuck for years, is notoriously overcrowded.