JAKARTA: More than a thousand Muslims marched to the heavily guarded Chinese Embassy in Indonesia’s capital on Friday to protest China’s treatment of its Uighur Muslims.

The protesters, many wearing blue headbands reading “Save Uighurs,” chanted “Get out, China!” and unfurled Indonesian and Uighur flags as they marched to the embassy in downtown Jakarta.

In a speech, Yusuf Martak, a protest organiser, condemned the “oppression, torture and cruelty by the Chinese Communist government against brother Uighur Muslims.”

Martak, a leader of a conservative Muslim alliance that held mass protests against Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese governor, a minority Christian, in 2016, demanded an end to mass detentions of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region.

“We Muslims oppose all forms of colonialism and oppression of Uighurs,” said another speaker, Slamet Marif, standing on the top of a truck. The crowd chanted “Get out, Communists!” as some waved banners saying “We stand with Uighurs”. He called on the Indonesian government to take action to help the Uighurs.

The protesters performed afternoon prayers outside the embassy before dispersing.

Human rights organisations say up to one million ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang have been detained in camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination and pressured to give up their religion.

China describes the sites as vocational training centres necessary to fight radicalism in the restive province, and says the trainees work voluntarily.

Indonesian security minister Mohammad Mahfud MD on Thursday said the government summoned Chinese Ambas­sador Xiao Qian to explain the alleged abuses in Xinjiang.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2019