Thai police on Wednesday said ethnic Uighur Muslims from China who escaped an immigration detention center will not be deported – if they are recaptured – despite a request by Beijing. Twenty-five Uighurs dug through their cell wall with broken tiles to make their dramatic escape from the center in Thailand’s southern Songkhla province, near the border with Malaysia, early on Monday. Thailand is a key destination for ethnic Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim Turkic minority originating in western China’s Xinjiang province. Human rights groups say unrest in Xinjiang in recent years was followed by a Chinese central government crackdown against the Muslim community.