BEIJING, CHINA – MAY 28: Chinese president Xi Jinping arranges his papers at the closing session of the National People’s Congress, which included a vote on a new draft security bill for Hong Kong, at the Great Hall of the People on May 28, 2020 in Beijing, China. The Chinese government passed the draft by a vote of 2,878 votes to one during the session. The draft law, which has drawn international concern, is set to address issues such as secession, subversion, terrorism, and foreign interference, comes after a year of anti-government protests in the semi-autonomous region. China held its annual parliamentary gathering, known as ‘The Two Sessions’, at the Great Hall of the People from May 21-28th after being postponed at the height of the coronavirus outbreak in China earlier this year. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl wrote a letter to Chinese Ambassador to Britain Liu Xiaoming, stating that his government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims is analogous to Nazi Germany.
The July 20 letter noted that the similarities include “people being forcibly loaded on to trains; beards of religious men being trimmed; women being sterilized; and the grim specter of concentration camps.”
“China risks squandering its achievements and sabotaging its own legacy if it fails to learn the lessons of history,” van der Zyl added. “The World will neither forgive nor forget a genocide against the Uyghur people.”
The letter concluded with a call for the Chinese government to release Uighur Muslims from the concentration camps and allow the camps to be investigated.
“The world is watching,” van der Zyl wrote. “The hand of history is poised. For its future, China has a choice between great glory and eternal shame. Let it choose the former.”
The letter comes after leaked drone footage from 2019 that recently resurfaced on social media showed Uighur Muslims and other minority groups handcuffed and blindfolded, being led to trains in Xinjiang, which is located in northern China. When the BBC pressed Xiaoming about the video, he said he didn’t know where the news outlet got the video.
“Sometimes you have a transfer of prisoners, in any country,” Xiaoming said. “Uighur people enjoy peaceful, harmonious coexistence with other ethnic groups of people.”
The United States announced sanctions against various Chinese government officials on July 9 because of their treatment of the Uighur Muslims.
“The United States will not stand idly by as the [Chinese Community Party] carries out human rights abuses targeted [at] Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and members of other minority groups in Xinjiang, to include forced labor, arbitrary mass detention, and forced population control, and attempts to erase their culture and Muslim faith,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement at the time.
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