More than 60 self-exiled members of a Chinese Christian church who were arrested in Pattaya a week ago for overstaying their visas are expected to be sent to a third country next week, says a senior police official.
The 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church — 31 adults and 32 children — have claimed refugee status, saying they would face persecution if they were sent back to China. Rights organisations have urged Thai authorities not to deport them to their home country.
Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Immigration Bureau have been holding talks with the UN refugee agency and the US Embassy to find a solution for the group, said deputy national police chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn.
“Within the next week, they will definitely be deported. What we don’t know is which country they will be deported to,” he told The Associated Press.
The members of the church, also known as the Mayflower Church, were granted refugee status by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees after their arrival in Thailand last year.
They have said they faced unbearable harassment in China and were seeking asylum in the United States. Two Americans who had been attempting to help resettle the group in Texas were briefly detained with them following a raid on a resort in Pattaya last Friday.
The church members initially fled China in 2019 for Jeju island in South Korea but prospects of refuge there were dim so they came to Thailand last year and contacted the UN.
An Immigration Bureau official with knowledge of recent discussions told The AP that Thai authorities would “find a way” for the church members to be sent to a third country.
“The Immigration Bureau will continue to take care of them on humanitarian grounds in the meantime,” said the official, who spoke on the condition he not be identified.
The church members had expected to be released after being arrested and fined last week for overstaying their visas. Instead, they were driven by bus from Pattaya to a police detention facility in Bangkok.
Pol Gen Surachate said the church members had been separated, with “the mothers and children” sent to an Immigration Bureau care facility, while the others were being kept in the bureau’s main detention centre in the capital.
He said Thailand had a principle of not allowing people seeking refuge to stay in the country. Thailand did not ratify the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and does not have any law addressing refugee status.
“Principally, we will not let them stay in Thailand, otherwise people from all over the world would come to Thailand,” he said. “You see, they were in South Korea for years and did not receive the UNHCR paper. They did within just four months of arriving here.”