Donald Trump’s UN call for an end to religious persecution omits the Uygurs of China’s Xinjiang
- The US president spoke at an event that featured testimony about an imprisoned Uygur scholar, yet made no mention of China’s mass internment of Muslims
- To some, that absence was glaring; to others, the invitation to a Uygur individual to speak was significant in itself
At the United Nations on Monday, US President Donald Trump called on governments around the world to end religious persecution.
Yet his keynote address, at a US-organised event featuring the testimony of the daughter of a prominent Uygur scholar imprisoned in China, made no mention of the continuing internment of Uygurs and other largely Muslim ethnic minority groups in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Instead, Trump said that religious freedom continued to be a priority of his presidency, and condemned various recent acts of violence and persecution against people of faith around the world.
Those included the March shootings of Muslims in New Zealand; the Easter bombings of churches in Sri Lanka; and the killing of Jewish worshippers at synagogues in Pennsylvania and California.
To some, the absence of China’s mass internment of Uygurs in Xinjiang from that list was conspicuous – and incongruous.
It was “truly [disappointing] to see that [Trump] failed to mention the most persecuted people on the face of the Earth,” US-based Uygur activist Salih Hudayar wrote on Twitter.