Two Uyghur men, aged 26 and 35, held in Thailand for more than a decade, wrote letters made public last week asking not to be sent to China.

“Every time we are worrying from China to take back us,” one of them wrote in a letter shared by Kannavee Suebsang, a former lawmaker and founder of the Peace Rights Foundation, a human rights group that represents the men. “We aren't terrorist,” the Uyghur man wrote. On Wednesday, at the Office of the National Human Rights Commission, the two men presented their plea not to be sent back to China, according to a source with direct knowledge of the meeting who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. Thailand's National Security Council head Chaipruak Doungprapat said his agency will not make a decision on their deportation, unlike the case of 40 Uyghur men who were sent back to China last year, and that the process will go through the courts, where the men will be able to defend themselves.