Call For Boycott, Uighur Muslims In Turkey: This Olympics Is Not On Snow, But On Blood

Illustration of a demonstration in support of Uighur Muslims. (Wikimedia Commons/Malcolm Brown)

JAKARTA - Hundreds of protesters from China's Uyghur Muslim community rallied in Istanbul, Turkey on Friday to call for a boycott of the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, urging participants to speak out against China's treatment of ethnic minorities.

The Beijing Olympics opened on Friday under the shadow of a diplomatic boycott, over China's human rights record and without large audiences due to the coronavirus pandemic.

"China stop genocide", "Muslims don't sleep, stand up for your brothers", shouted the protesters, who briefly blocked roads and clashed with rows of Turkish riot police as they tried to march towards the Chinese Consulate.

"This Olympics is held not in snow, but in blood," said one protester, 26-year-old student Abdullah Mudinoglu, citing Reuters on February 4.

Many protesters, gathered on the Istanbul coast, waved the blue-and-white flags of the East Turkestan independence movement, a group Beijing says threatens the stability of the far western region of Xinjiang.

Around 50,000 Uighurs are estimated to live in Turkey, the largest Uyghur diaspora outside Central Asia. Turks have close ethnic, religious and linguistic ties to the Uyghurs.

"We call on all of humanity to boycott and not watch the Winter Olympics. And for sports people and participants not to take part in this bloody game," Hidayet Oguzhan, head of the East Turkestan Education and Solidarity Association, told the crowd.

UN experts and rights groups estimate that more than one million people, mainly from Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, have been detained in forced labor camps in Xinjiang since 2016.

China initially denied such camps existed, but has since said they are vocational centers and designed to combat extremism, denying all allegations of abuse.

"We are completely against the Olympics being held there with such genocide being carried out against the Uighurs," criticized Sufinur Omercan, 28, at Friday's protest.

"My father is a historian and was thrown in jail for the columns and books he wrote. I haven't been able to get any news about him since 2017."

Last month, 19 Uighurs filed criminal charges through Turkish prosecutors against Chinese officials, accusing them of genocide, torture, rape and crimes against humanity.

To note, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan and Denmark have said they will not send an official diplomatic delegation to the Olympics to protest China's human rights record.