The Human Rights Protection Council of Sylhet held protests across Bangladesh on Wednesday against the persecution of Uyghur Muslims in China's Xinjiang region and to mark Doppa Day, the festival celebrated by the people of the ethnic group.
To mark their protest, the organisers distributed pamphlets in mosques and put up posters depicting the harsh treatment meted out to Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities by the Chinese government, reported AB Sylhet in a Facebook post.
The leaflets which were distributed mentioned several demands, including lifting the Chinese government ban on Doppa caps that symbolise the traditions of the Uyghur Muslims, a ban on the systematic repression of the Uyghurs, abolition of forced abortions, releasing the detained members of the group from the internment camps and more.
President of the organization Abul Hashem Mohammad Sohail, Member Secretary Abdullah Al Helal, Organizing Secretary Maulana Khalilur Rahman, Hafeez Usama and other leaders distributed pamphlets with these demands in more than 100 mosques in Sylhet city.
A Doppa is a four cornered hat traditionally worn by the Turkic people of Central Asia and East Turkestan to celebrate their culture.
AB Sylhet reported that the Uyghur Muslims in China call on the Muslim world to stand up against all conspiracies to destroy their culture by holding such kind of programmes on the occasion of Doppa Day on May 5.
China has been rebuked globally for cracking down on Uyghur Muslims by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending members of the community to undergo some form of forcible re-education or indoctrination.
Beijing, on the other hand, has vehemently denied that it is engaged in human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang while reports from journalists, NGOs and former detainees have surfaced, highlighting the Chinese Communist Party's brutal crackdown on the ethnic community.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom wrote in its International Religious Freedom Annual Report issued on April 28, 2020, that "individuals have been sent to the camps for wearing long beards, refusing alcohol, or other behaviours authorities deem to be signs of 'religious extremism.'"
But many survivors say many of the detainees at the internment camps are subjected to torture, rape, and forced labour, mainly working in textile factories and picking cotton. Some women have reported being forced to undergo an abortion and others say they were forcibly sterilized, reported RFE/RL.
The documentary comes after the United States, Britain, Canada, and the European Union imposed sanctions on several Chinese officials over the reported rights abuses in Xinjiang.On April 22, the British House of Commons approved a parliamentary motion declaring crimes against humanity and genocide are being committed against Uyghurs and other mostly Muslims in Xinjiang.
( With inputs from ANI )
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor