Bangkok shrine bombing trial resumes after long delays, Tuesday marked the resumption of the trial of two Uighurs who are accused of carrying out a deadly bomb attack in Bangkok in 2015 following years of delays brought on by the coronavirus and issues securing translators. 20 people, mostly Chinese tourists, were killed in a bombing that was allegedly set off by Yusufu Mieraili and Bilal Mohammed in August 2015 at a Hindu shrine in the center of Bangkok’s business district.
Bangkok shrine bombing trial resumes after long delays
The explosion occurred just a few weeks after the Thai junta forcibly returned 109 Uighurs to China, where rights advocates claim the Muslim minority is subjected to oppression on both a cultural and religious level. The timing of the attack led to speculation that it was a part of a plot for retaliation against a nation that had served as a major transit point for Uighurs as Thailand’s military rulers at the time grew closer to Beijing.
As the court struggled to find a qualified interpreter, the trial for the two men was repeatedly postponed; nonetheless, on Tuesday, hearings in Bangkok were restarted. Officers from the police forensic division who examined the crime site at Erawan Shrine and an apartment where the two accused lived were scheduled to give testimony on Tuesday, according to defense attorney Schoochart Kanpai.
Xinjiang, the most western region of China, is home to the Turkic minority known as Uighurs. Since at least the 1990s, China has been charged with serious human rights violations against the Uighurs in Xinjiang; the United States has labeled Beijing’s treatment of the primarily Muslim minority as “genocide.” According to a damning UN report published in August, abuses in what Beijing refers to as “vocational training centers” included torture, forced labor, and “large-scale” arbitrary detention.