26 March 2021•Update: 26 March 2021
JAKARTA, Indonesia
Indonesian students on Thursday held a rally in front of the Chinese embassy in Jakarta, demanding Beijing stops violence and human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims.
The Islamic Student Alliance (AMI) also urged the Indonesian government to boycott Chinese products.
"We call for an end to all forms of human rights violations, including torture and massacre of ethnic Uyghurs," Rimbo Bugis, a coordinator of the rally, told Anadolu Agency.
The protesters also urged for the cases of human rights violations in Xinjiang to be brought to the International Court of Justice.
"We will also invite people from other religions and other groups [to protest] because, for us, it is not just a matter of slaughtering the Muslims but a massacre of humanity," said Bugis.
The protestors also carried out theatrical performances, portraying discriminatory actions against Uyghurs by the Chinese forces.
In January, the US said China has committed "crimes against humanity and possibly genocide" against the Uyghurs and other Muslim minority communities in the western Xinjiang province.
Earlier this week, foreign ministers of Canada and the UK and the US secretary of state released a joint statement, expressing concern over the Chinese government's "human rights violations and abuses" in the region.
Noting that they "have taken a coordinated action on measures, in parallel to measures by the EU," the three top diplomats said they want to clarify what they think about the "human rights violations and abuses."
The Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uyghurs. The Turkic Muslim group, which makes up around 45% of Xinjiang's population, has long accused the Chinese authorities of cultural, religious and economic discrimination.
According to the US officials and the UN experts, up to 1 million people, or about 7% of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps.
A 2018 Human Rights Watch report detailed a Chinese government campaign of "mass arbitrary detention, torture, forced political indoctrination, and mass surveillance of Xinjiang's Muslims."
China, however, has repeatedly denied allegations that it is operating detention camps in its northwestern autonomous region, claiming instead that they are "re-educating" Uyghurs.
*Writing by Rhany Chairunissa Rufinaldo with Anadolu Agency's Indonesian language services in Jakarta
