UK Muslim activist praises Jewish community for speaking out for Uighurs
Many activists from the Jewish community have attempted to raise awareness of the crisis faced by the Uighurs.
By AARON REICHA Chinese Uyghur Muslim participates in an anti-China protest during the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan June 28, 2019(photo credit: REUTERS)
A British Muslim activist praised the Jewish community on Saturday for their activism in raising awareness of the persecution of Uighur Muslims by China, the Algemeiner reported.“My Jewish brethren are the only ones I ain’t gonna call out,” Maajid Nawaz, who is on a hunger strike to draw attention to the plight of the Uighurs, said over Twitter. “They’ve stepped up already and are here with me right now.”Nawaz has been long been known for his outspoken opposition to radical Islam and antisemitism, the Algemeiner reported. Last December, he campaigned against Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the UK Labour Party who has faced several accusations of antisemitism, as well as helping maintain a culture of antisemitism in the party.The activist is now seeking to force the British government to discuss the Uighurs in Parliament, and is calling on supporters to sign a petition to this effect.In recent months, the Chinese government has cracked down on the Uighurs, a Muslim minority in the Xinjiang region. This persecution has included being deported into camps, torture and "reeducation."Many activists from the Jewish community have attempted to raise awareness of the crisis faced by the Uighurs. In January, World Uighur Congress president Dolkun Isa met with leaders of British Jewry to seek aid and support, according to the UK's Jewish News. The meeting came in the run-up to Holocaust Memorial Day, which drew comparisons between the reeducation camps China made for the Uighurs and the Nazi concentration camps.According to the Algemeiner, Amanda Bowman, vice president of the UK's leading Jewish umbrella organization the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said at the time that “In the week that we are marking Holocaust Memorial Day and the liberation of the most notorious concentration camp, it is intolerable that the Uighur Muslims are being persecuted on this scale.“It is the responsibility of all of us in the Jewish community to stand up and make our voices heard in their support.”This is not the first time the Chinese government has been compared to Nazi Germany. In November 2019, several Hong Kong protesters and politicians began using Nazi and Holocaust imagery when referring to China, portraying Beijing in the same light as Adolf Hitler's regime.While most agreed the Hong Kong protesters were not antisemitic for this comparison, some stated that using this comparison was inappropriate because it minimizes the severity of Nazi Germany's actions.
However, many protesters on the ground defended the use of the imagery with a simple explanation. Rather than disregarding the severity of the crimes of Nazi Germany, they argue that China's alleged totalitarianism is simply that bad – and if not, then it's well on its way to becoming that bad.“The atrocities committed by the [Chinese Communist Party] may be greater than you originally thought,” said a protest organizer identified only as Johnson, according to Quartz. “Making this term ‘Chinazi’ is to send a warning to the world: If we do not stop the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), the deaths and the tragedies will probably keep happening. The victims may not only be the Chinese people, the Hongkongers, the Taiwanese, but [one] may be you. The history of German Nazi may repeat itself.”
