A group of demonstrators gathered in front of the Chinese Consulate General in the Turkish city of Istanbul, on Sunday, to protest against Beijing’s policies towards the Muslims of East Turkestan.
And the Anatolia correspondent stated that the demonstrators chanted slogans against the Chinese authorities and carried banners calling on Beijing to stop its practices towards the residents of East Turkestan.
In a speech delivered by Mehmet Yaroglu, head of the Istanbul branch of the Anatolian Youth Association, during the demonstration, he accused the Chinese authorities of “isolating the Turkestan brothers from the outside world.”
He added, “Our brothers in East Turkestan are being kept away from their children, their husbands, their jobs, and their mothers, and crammed into a narrow geographical area.”
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He stressed that “the Chinese authorities deprive the residents of East Turkistan of the most basic rights, restrict their freedom of belief and thought, and force them to live in isolation in detention camps.”
In August 2018, a United Nations human rights panel reported that China was detaining about a million Muslim Uyghurs in secret camps in East Turkestan.
Since 1949, Beijing has controlled the territory of “East Turkistan”, which is the home of the Muslim Uyghur Turks, and calls it Xinjiang, meaning “new frontier”.