London: British Jewry’s main human rights group lead the fight against the oppression and attempted “genocide” committed by China on its Uyghurs Muslim community.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Mia Hasenson-Gross, leader of British Jewry’s main human rights group, met up with Rahima Mahmut, a UK-based activist for the rights of Uyghurs, a Muslim minority that is the target of ‘genocide’ — as said by advocates and the US Department of State — by the Chinese Communist Party.
“I found myself thinking back about my own grandfather, Saul Gun, who left his family in Romania in the 1920s and soon thereafter never really knew what exactly happened to them during the Holocaust,” Hasenson-Gross told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as quoted by The Jerusalem Post.
The director of the London-based Rene Cassin charity decided to spread the word about the human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang.
Hasenson-Gross’s efforts added to an unusual mobilisation that has turned British Jews — including their chief rabbi, who usually remains aloof from political issues that do not directly involve Jews or Israel — into some of the most vocal advocates for the Chinese Muslim minority, according to The Jerusalem Post.
The push to draw attention to the Uyghur atrocities cause is “captivating not just liberal” Jews often involved in issues of social justice but Orthodox Jews, as well.
“People in the rank and file of the community are talking about this issue,” said Herschel Gluck, a prominent Orthodox rabbi who has fostered relationships with British Muslims as quoted by The Jerusalem Post.
“This is something that is felt very deeply by the community. They feel that if ‘Never again’ is a term that needs to be used, this is certainly one of the situations where it applies.”
Orthodox Jew named Andrew has been protesting, mostly on his own, outside the Chinese Embassy in London since 2019 at least twice a week holding a sign that reads “3 million Muslims in Chinese concentration camps.” Eliyahu Goldsobel an orthodox Jew has been holding rallies outside Volkswagen showrooms in London ‘Jews for Uyghurs’ as the company has facilities in China’s heavily Uyghur region of Xinjiang.
The news outlet further reported that the archbishop of Canterbury, the leader of the Church of England, has not addressed the Uyghur issue.
Neither has Pope Francis in the Vatican, despite repeated calls to do so on both Christian faith leaders.
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, according to a report.
Genocide is a serious crime under international law and the US government has adopted the term on rare occasions only after extensive documentation.
Some experts said reports of mass surveillance, torture, arbitrary detentions and forced detentions employed by China against Uyghurs amount to “demographic genocide”