Xinjiang Brutality Sparks China Boycott Calls

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

Calls are growing to boycott the Chinese products over Beijing's brutal crackdown on Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province. (Reuters) ANKARA — Amid Muslim protests over China's deadly crackdown of its Muslim minority, calls are growing louder for a boycott of Chinese products over its treatment of Uighur Muslims.

"Consumers are the most effective weapon of our age," a spokesman of the Turkish consumer rights association told Agence France Presse (AFP) during an anti-China rally in Ankara on Friday, July 10.

"Our association is launching the biggest boycott against China today."The call echoes a similar one by Turkish Trade and Industry Minister Nihat Ergun for an all-out boycott of Chinese products over Beijing's atrocities against Uighur Muslims.

"If the country where we consume the good does not respect human values, we should reconsider our values," he said on Thursday.

"Consumers who buy a good must find out if the producing country respects human values or not."

At least 156 people were killed and more than 1,000 wounded when Chinese police unleashed a massive crackdown on the Turkish-speaking ethnic minority this week.

The deadly crackdown has drawn global condemnation, with organizations and Western leaders urging China to exercise self-restraint.

"Chinese items will be boycotted," said Maualana Habib-ur-Rehman, Imam of the India's largest mosque of Jama Masjid.

"If needed, we will talk to Muslim councils in the country and issue a fatwa forbidding Chinese products."

Protests

Thousands of Muslims took to the streets around the world on Friday to protest the Chinese brutal crackdown on the Uighurs.

"No to ethnic cleansing!" chanted crowds of Turks and Uighur expatriates in Ankara following the Friday prayers.

Many protesters waved the Uighur flag, depicting a white crescent on a blue background, as some others set fire to Chinese flags and goods produced in China.

"Murderer China", chanted some 200 protesters following the prayers at Istanbul's Beyazit mosque.

In Australia, hundreds of Muslims staged a protest against the Chinese treatment of Xinjiang Muslims.

"Death to Chinese terrorists" shouted the protestors outside the Australian parliament in the capital Canberra.

Indonesian Muslims were also out into the streets to protest the Chinese brutality.

"China can no longer act as tyrants towards those of their people who are of a different faith," Tifatul Sembiring, the head of Indonesia's largest Muslim party, the Prosperous Justice Party, said in a statement sent to AFP.

Uighur Muslims accuse the government of settling millions of ethnic Han in their territory, a vast region with large oil and gas reserves, with the ultimate goal of obliterating its identity and culture.

They also cite a recent government plan that has brought the teaching of Mandarin Chinese in Xinjiang schools, replacing their local dialect

http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1246346210711&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout