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The Executive Council of Aus­trali­an Jewry, the peak rep­res­ent­at­ive body of the Aus­trali­an Jewish community, has expressed its deep concern and alarm about the treatment of Uyghur and other minority com­munit­ies in north-western China.

“It is impossible to ignore per­sist­ent reports of hundreds of thousands of members of the Uyghur and other Muslim com­munit­ies in China being rounded up and sent to re-education camps to pressure them into abandon­ing their religion, and other harsh gov­ern­ment measures directed at reducing their numbers”, ECAJ President Jillian Segal said.

“In the face of official denials of these practices, we have seen shocking footage coming from north-western China of dozens of people kneeling, bound and blind­folded with their heads shaved being led on to trains by armed guards”.

“Whilst every gov­ern­ment has the right and duty to protect its people from terrorism and violent sep­ar­at­ist and other political movements, the sup­pres­sion by forced reduc­tions in pop­u­la­tion and mass trans­ports of hundreds of thousands of people to detention centres, simply for express­ing religious ideas and par­ti­cip­at­ing in religious worship, can have no jus­ti­fic­a­tion, and is an egregious violation of fun­da­ment­al human freedoms, dignity and rights.

“These crude and brutal measures are unworthy of any nation, let alone one that prides itself on having inherited the enlightened tra­di­tions of a great civil­isa­tion.”

“We urge the gov­ern­ment of China not to sully its global repu­ta­tion by setting itself up as an enemy of religion. We ask it to re-think its policies and practices, and to act with the delib­er­a­tion and self-restraint that befits China’s status as a great power.”

Contact
Peter Wertheim AM | Co-CEO
ph: 02 8353 8505 | m: 0408 160 904 | fax 02 9361 588
e: [email protected]| www.ecaj.org.au