Chinese students at US university jeer at Uyghur classmate during event

Several students of Chinese descent walked out of a University event in New York last week in protest after an Uyghur student spoke about the Chinese government's rights abuses in Xinjiang.

At a weekly speaker series, Cornell student Rizwangul Nur Muhammad asked a US lawmaker why Washington had imposed sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine but is yet to take a similar measure against the Chinese government.

In response to her question, some Chinese international students booed and left an event last week in protest, Axios reported.

Taking to Twitter, Elissa Slotkin, a US representative from Michigan said an Uyghur student who talked about Chinese policy toward the Uyghur community, was the victim of a coordinated protest to the criticism of the Chinese government

"The young woman, who was herself an Uyghur, told me about her brother, who has been detained in China since 2017. She asked why the world wasn't paying more attention to the treatment of the Uyghur minority," Slotkin tweeted.

"I responded by pointing out what is well known about Chinese policy toward the Uyghur community: that the government has carried out imprisonment, forced labour, and forced indoctrination. In response, a group of Chinese international students got up and walked out, in what appeared to be a coordinated protest to the criticism of the Chinese government," she said.

Slamming the action taken by the Chinese students, the US lawmaker said, "I take no issue whatsoever with the Chinese people or the Chinese students in the class, but I won't dance around the human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist Party."

"Since then, the young woman who asked me the question has become the victim of bullying and intimidation by some fellow students. There's no excuse for that behaviour, and I expect Cornell to ensure that all students can express themselves free of intimidation or threats," Slotkin said.

According to US media reports, Uyghurs and other Chinese groups sometimes face intimidation and threats to their family members in China when they speak out on US campuses about the Chinese government.

( With inputs from ANI )

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