Malaysia freed 11 ethnic Uighur Muslims who fled to the Southeast Asian nation after a Thai jailbreak last year because they did nothing wrong there, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Monday, Reuters reports. The decision may further strain ties with China, which has been accused of cracking down on the minority Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang. Since his return to power, Mahathir has called projects worth billion dollars that had been awarded to Chinese companies, Al-Jazeera reports. China’s western Xinjiang region has written “vocational training centres” for Muslim Uighurs into law amid growing international concern over large-scale disappearances there, according to the BBC.