World

'We're next': Hong Kongers rally for China's Uighurs

December 22, 2019
Protesters attend a rally in Hong Kong on Sunday to show support for the Uighur minority in China. -AFP
Protesters attend a rally in Hong Kong on Sunday to show support for the Uighur minority in China. -AFP

HONG KONG - Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters rallied in solidarity with China's Uighurs on Sunday in a move likely to infuriate Beijing as they likened their plight to that of the oppressed Muslim minority.

The rally was broken up when riot police swooped in after some protesters removed a Chinese flag from a nearby government building.

China has faced international condemnation for rounding up an estimated one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in internment camps in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

The emergence of a huge surveillance and prison system that now blankets much of Xinjiang has been watched closely in Hong Kong which has been convulsed by six months of huge and sometimes violent protests against Beijing's rule.

Pro-Uighur chants and flags have become commonplace in Hong Kong's marches but Sunday's rally was the first to be specifically dedicated to Uighurs.

Around 1,000 people gathered in a square close to the city's harborfront listening to speeches warning that the Chinese Communist Party's crackdown in Xinjiang could one day be replicated in Hong Kong.

"We shall not forget those who share a common goal with us, our struggle for freedom and democracy and the rage against the Chinese Communist Party," one speaker shouted through the loudspeaker to cheers from the crowd.

Many of those attending were waving the flag of "East Turkestan", the term many Uighur separatists use for Xinjiang, which has a white crescent moon on a blue background.

Others wore blue face masks with the East Turkestan flag on it.

China runs Hong Kong on a "one country, two systems" model which allows the financial hub key freedoms that are denied people on the authoritarian mainland.

Come 2047 -- 50 years after Britain handed the city back -- the deal ends.

Many Hong Kongers fear an increasingly assertive China is already eroding those freedoms, especially since Xi Jinping became president. -AFP


December 22, 2019
350 views
HIGHLIGHTS
World
6 hours ago

Fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison

World
6 hours ago

Jacob Zuma barred from running in South Africa elections

World
9 hours ago

India opposition leader Kejriwal to remain in jail in corruption case