Thailand asked to protect over 200 illegal Muslim immigrants

BANGKOK, March 15 (TNA) - The United States has called for Thailand to protect a large group of over 200 illegal Muslim immigrants who were arrested in a rubber plantation in Songkhla Province in the Thai South last Wednesday night and have now been found to be Uighurs fleeing from China's western Xinjiang Province. Washington made the call on Friday (local time), as it fears that Beijing may pressure Thailand to deport the 220 illegal Muslim immigrants. Human Rights Watch adviser Sunai Phasuk told journalists that the Muslim immigrants were fleeing from Xinjiang, China's Muslim province, on their way to Turkey through Malaysia. Earlier, Thai immigration police were helping verify the nationality of the large group of illegal immigrants, who were arrested in a rubber plantation in Songkhla. The 220 aliens, who were first assumed to be Turk and were expected to use the Thai soil as their transit point to another country, were rounded up in the plantation, where Songkhla's Rattaphum and Hat Yai Districts adjoin, comprising 78 men, 60 women and 82 children.(TNA)