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Thousands rally in Indonesia, Malaysia to protest against China’s Repression of Muslim Uyghurs

SHAFAQNA- Thousands of people took to the streets in Indonesia and Malaysia on Friday to protest against China’s repression of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province.

In Malaysia, members of various groups gathered in front of the Chinese embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

In a joint memorandum, the groups, including Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) and Hizbut Tahrir, urged Beijing to respect the rights of the Uyghurs.

“We demand the Chinese government to stop the extreme discrimination and ask them to close the camps in Xinjiang that are housing hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs that are oppressed by Beijing,” ABIM’s leader, Muhammad Faisal Abdul Aziz, told reporters.

HTM spokesperson Abdul Hakim Othman said the organisation would not remain silent and would continue speaking against the persecution of the Uyghurs.

He urged the Chinese government to immediately stop the torture of Muslim minorities and release them from the alleged concentration camps.

“We know that the Chinese government is lying to the whole world”.

“They may say that the concentration camps are just re-education camps, but we know the truth from leaked pictures and videos,” Hakim added.

Both ABIM and HTM submitted memorandum to the Chinese Embassy, but no representative was present to receive them.

Faisal said this was the second time ABIM had submitted a memorandum to the embassy.

“We have contacted embassy officers through official channels, but there was no response. This shows that they are not willing to discuss this matter. Even today, nobody came to meet us. So, we just placed our memoranda at the gate of the embassy,” he added.

The protesters also criticized the Malaysian government, with Hizbut Tahrir demanding stronger action against Beijing, including severing diplomatic ties.

In September, Prime Minister Mahathir told Benar News in an interview that China’s economic and military strength may have prevented Muslim nations from criticizing Beijing’s repression of the Uyghurs.

On Dec. 24, however, the youth wing of Mahathir’s Bersatu party urged his government “to take the initiative to mediate a solution to the ongoing religious suppression in China,” as it called on Beijing to immediately cease “all oppressive actions upon the Uyghurs”, rfa told.

Thousands rally in Jakarta

After Friday prayers about 1,000 mostly Muslim protesters gathered in heavy rain outside the Chinese embassy in Jakarta, in the largest demonstration to date in the Southeast Asian country against Beijing’s crackdown on Muslim minorities. Many of the protesters wore white Islamic garb and skull caps.

They waved banners that read: “China, stop genocide of ethnic Uyghurs,” “Shame on you China for depriving Uyghurs of their freedom,” and “Over one million Uyghurs arbitrarily detained in China, Indonesia must speak out”,  according to Malay Mail.

Rally organizer Slamet Ma’arif said the protest voiced its “condemnation of China’s oppression against our Uighur Muslim brothers.”
“We demand the Chinese government stop forbidding Muslim Uighurs to exercise their religion,” Ma’arif said.
He called on the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to investigate China’s treatment of the Uighur and take its findings to the International Criminal Court.
“We condemn the Indonesian government’s idleness regarding the Uighurs’ problem and its failure to carry out our constitutional mandate which states that colonialism should be abolished in the world,” Ma’arif said.

Arini Soemardi, a teacher who attended the rally, told Arab News she wanted to express solidarity with oppressed fellow Muslims.
“The Indonesian government has not said much about this. The government should strongly voice its opposition to the oppression in accordance with our constitution,” she said.

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