JAKARTA - The tweet uploaded by Arsenal football club player Mesut Ozil on his Twitter account has drawn criticism from a number of netizens in China. The Turkish-blooded player on Twitter referred to the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, China, which is inhabited by the Uighur ethnic minority as "East Turkistan".
# HayırlıCumalarDoğuTürkistan 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/dJgeK4KSIk
- Mesut Özil (@ MesutOzil1088) December 13, 2019
Launching from Globaltimes.cn, netizens and football fans in China, Friday, December 13, regretted the tweet. They think that a football player like Ozil should not interfere in China's internal affairs by showing his support for separatist groups in Xinjiang. Even some Arsenal fans have called for a boycott of the Premier League's top clubs.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, December 14 in the morning, Arsenal issued a statement on the Sina Weibo account, that what Ozil uploaded was a personal view. As a football club, Arsenal emphasized its stance not to interfere in political matters.
However, the statement posted in Mandarin on Chinese social media has not been able to assuage the anger of football fans in China. They want the club to post an apology to them in English on Twitter.
East Turkistan
According to the white paper published by the Information Office of the Chinese Government Council in July 2019 on the History of Xinjiang, China's history has never been related to East Turkistan and has never known the country "East Turkistan" as Ozil mentioned in his Twitter account.
The so-called East Turkistan state is a political tool in the efforts of separatism and anti-Chinese groups who want to separate from mainland China, according to official Chinese media.
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