Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in London and consulate in Manchester Saturday against China’s atrocities of Uyghur Muslims, demanding Beijing to close the concentration camps in the Xinjiang province.
Holding placards and flags, the demonstrators in London chanted “we will not be silenced”.
Addressing the protest rally, former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, said “Some people say this is a conspiracy against China by America. As a victim of America, I can say this is no conspiracy—China and America work hand in hand.”
“We stand against Chinese imperialism, colonisation and opposition to Islam,” he said.
“We are standing here for Uyghurs. We want China to close the concentration camps, open up the mosques and give the Uyghur Muslims, Kazak Muslims, and other persecuted minorities the basic freedoms to practice Islam,” one of the protestors told Middle East Eye, a London-based online news outlet.
Afzal Khan, Labour Party MP said, “What we have here today is a large gathering for a protest outside the Consulate of China. It’s the concern of these Mancunians about the treatment of Uyghurs in China. Now this issue, of course, is now mounting to genocide. And that really is not acceptable.
China has been accused of human rights abuses against the ethnic Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwestern China. More than 1 million people were being detained in internment camps in 2018, a United Nations human rights committee found.
Former camp detainees have alleged they were tortured and sexually abused.
