As 70 Religious Leaders Condemn China for Uighur Humanitarian Tragedy
London, MINA – More than 70 religious leaders in the world openly criticized the Chinese government for humanitarian oppression of Uighurs.
“The Uighurs are becoming one of the most serious human tragedies since the Holocaust”, said Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, one of the religious leaders who participated in the joint declaration. Fr24News reported on Sunday.
“Those responsible for the persecution of China’s Muslim minority should be detained,” he said.
“The detention of at least one million Uighurs and other Muslims in prison camps, where they will face hunger, torture, murder, sexual violence, forced labor and forced organ harvesting is a potential genocide,” the joint declaration said.
The declaration, signed by the five current bishops of the Church of England, the Coptic Archbishop of London, the Dalai Lama’s Representative in Europe, as well as cardinals, Muslim clerics and rabbis of Yahud.
The declaration also said the Uyghurs’ plight “questions the will of the international community seriously to defend universal human rights for all.”
The statement added, “The aim of the Chinese authorities is clearly to eradicate the Uighur identity, break their lineage, sever their roots, cut their ties and destroy their origins.”
The religious leaders said, “After the Holocaust, the world said never again. Today we repeat these words “Never again.”
“We are launching a simple call for justice, to investigate these crimes, to hold them accountable and to lead the way to the restoration of human dignity,” he continued.
Their remarks come after comparisons were made last month between the Holocaust and atrocities against Uyghurs in a letter from the chairman of Britain’s Jewish Council of Deputies, Marie van der Zyl, to the Chinese ambassador in Britain.
Former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks tweeted. “As a Jew, I say that people in the 21st century are murdered, terrorized, victimized, intimidated, and deprived of their liberty because the way they worship God is a moral scandal, political scandal, and blasphemy of faith itself.”
Meanwhile, Liu Xiaoming, China’s ambassador to Britain, said that talk of concentration camps was “wrong.”
China insists that Uighurs are carrying out a violent campaign for an independent state by plotting civil unrest and sabotage. (T/RE1)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
