Arsenal has distanced itself from comments made by star playmaker Mesut Ozil regarding the plight of the Uyghur minority in China.
Ozil slammed China’s treatment of the Uyghur people amid allegations of religious and ethnic persecution.
In a post on Instagram, the 31-year-old wrote the following using the Uyghur’s ‘East Turkestan’ flag as the backdrop:
“East Turkistan,
The bleeding wound of the Ummah,
Resisting against the persecutors trying to separate them from their religion.
They burn their Quran’s,
They shut down their mosques,
They ban their schools,
They kill their holy men,
The men are forced into camps and their families are forced to live with Chinese men,
The women are forced to marry Chinese men…
But Muslims are silent,
They won’t talk about it,
They have abandoned them
Don’t they know that giving consent for persecution is persecution itself?
The honorable Ali, (son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad), says, ‘If you cannot prevent persecution, expose it,”
The Western media and states have been raising awareness of their flight for months,
Why haven’t the Muslim world?
Don’t they know that turning a blind eye to persecution is despicable?
Don’t they know that it is not the suffering of our brothers being tortured that is going to be remembered, it is our silence…
Oh God please help our brothers in East Turkistan
Mesut Ozil”
#HayırlıCumalarDoğuTürkistan ?? pic.twitter.com/dJgeK4KSIk
— Mesut Özil (@MesutOzil1088) December 13, 2019
The north London club has now moved to limit the damage to its business interests in China.
In a statement on Weibo, China’s most popular social media site, Arsenal said: “Regarding the comments made by Mesut Ozil on social media, Arsenal must make a clear statement.
“The content published is Ozil’s personal opinion. As a football club, Arsenal has always adhered to the principle of not involving itself in politics.”
The UN and human rights groups estimate that up to two million people, mostly Uyghur Muslims, have been detained in harsh conditions in Xinjiang.
About a million people – mostly from the Muslim Uyghur community – are thought to have been detained without trial according to the BBC.
China has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uyghurs.
The Uyghur’s are a Turkic ethnic group speaking a language similar to the Turkish of Turkey.
They makeup 45 percent of the population of the Xinjiang, province and accuse China of carrying out repressive policies that restrain their religious, commercial and cultural activities.
