Protesters in China support Uyghur Muslims

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – Protesters on the streets of Shanghai supported China’s oppressed Uyghur Muslim minority.

As “New Arab” reported the demonstrators on last Sunday came to streets in Shanghai to chant against China`s repressive Covid lockdowns and shared support for the Muslim Uyghur population of northern China.

They shouted:” We don’t want a dictatorship. We want democracy. We don’t want a leader. We want voting. We stand with the people of Xinjiang.”

Rights groups say more than one million Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people have been incarcerated in internment camps across China’s northwestern territory, with residents pressured to give up traditional and religious activities.

The streets of China have never witnessed such popular sentiment towards the Uyghurs’ plight, where protest is extremely rare.

“Give movies back, we want cinema freedom. We want free expression. Give media back, give us journalism back,” chanted crowds in Beijing.

People took to the streets in major cities and gathered at university campuses across China on Sunday to call for an end to lockdowns and greater political freedoms, in a wave of protests not seen since pro-democracy rallies in 1989 were crushed.

A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of northwest China’s Xinjiang region, was the catalyst for public anger, with many blaming Covid lockdowns for hampering rescue efforts.

But protesters also called for greater political freedoms, with some even demanding the resignation of China’s President Xi Jinping, recently re-appointed to a historic third term as the country’s leader.