(7/12/19, Chicago, IL) — An interfaith coalition of religious and spiritual leaders has condemned today’s joint statement of 37 countries, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, supporting Chinese policies in Xinjiang (East Turkistan).
The letter, which comes on the heels of an earlier letter delivered at the UN on Wednesday that condemned China’s policies, applauds the policies and commends them for making progress in the realm of national security.
“This just shows the backward, shortsighted priorities that characterize the outlook of too many governments today,” said Abdul Malik Mujahid, Chair of the Faith Coalition to Stop Genocide. “It is really a shame that so many world leaders cannot put the basic values of human rights before their commercial and political interests, and simply recognize the truth that the camps in Xinjiang (East Turkistan) are the largest concentration camps since Nazi Germany, and must be condemned as such,” he added.
“As long as such disingenuous, harmful statements continue to be made, China and other authoritarian countries will continue to oppress and erase minorities with impunity. The Uighurs, along with many other minority ethnicities in Xinjiang (East Turkistan), will cease to exist if this keeps up,” Mujahid said.
The Faith Coalition is calling on all concerned citizens and advocates of human rights to contact their ambassadors from these countries and inform them that concentration camps are not tolerable in the twenty-first century, and to demand their representatives rescind their signatures from the letter.
In contrast, the Faith Coalition applauded the joint letter, delivered earlier in the week at the United Nations, in which a group of European countries, New Zealand, and Japan univocally condemned China’s policies and called for their immediate end.
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The Faith Coalition to Stop Genocide in Burma is a united group of American faith leaders from diverse religious backgrounds who have come together out of a deep concern for the suffering of the indigenous Rohingya of Burma who face genocide and annihilation at the hands of the Burmese military.
