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by Our Foreign Desk
PROTESTERS ransacked the Thai consulate in Istanbul early yesterday after Thailand deported 109 ethnic Uighurs to their homeland in China.
The group of about 100 gathered at the consulate before dawn waving Uighur flags and brought down the Thai flag.
They then threw stones at the building, smashing windows and broke into the offices, where they destroyed pictures and furniture and scattered files.
Police allowed the protesters to pray outside the consulate before taking nine of them away for questioning.
Turkey’s ties with China have been strained over reports in Turkey that Uighurs were being mistreated and prevented from worship and fasting during the Muslim month of Ramadan.
Protests broke out across Turkey, and on one occasion a group of nationalists in Istanbul tried to attack a group of Korean tourists, mistaking them for Chinese nationals.
Thai deputy government spokesman Major General Verachon Sukhonthapatipak said that the group of Uighur migrants had come to Thailand a year ago along with others claiming Turkish nationality.
“We found that about 170 of them were Turkish, so they were recently sent to Turkey,” he said. “And about 100 were Chinese, so they were sent to China as of this morning, under the agreement that their safety is guaranteed according to humanitarian principles.”
China has been fighting Islamist Uighur terrorists in western Xinjiang province.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry condemned the deportations.
Uighurs share a common Turkic linguistic heritage with Turks.
