Protests Staged outside Chinese Consulate in Kolkata against Oppression of Uyghurs

Hundreds of supporters gathered in Kolkata to assert that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India, condemning what they labelled as Beijing's "cartographic aggression." They voiced opposition to the alleged oppression of Muslim Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang province.

New Delhi:Statingthat Arunachal Pradesh is an “inalienable part of India”, hundreds of supporters on Saturday raised slogans against Beijing’s “cartographic aggression” over the Indian State in Kolkata. Displaying banners and raising slogans against the large-scale “oppression of Muslim Uyghurs” in China's Xinjiang province, the protesters condemned Beijing’s “cartographic aggression” by showing the whole of Arunachal Pradesh as Chinese territory in the 2O23 Standard Map published by its Ministry of Natural Resources.

Hundreds of people under the leadership of the Kolkata-based Islamic Association for Peace staged an hour-long protest outside the Chinese consulate at Salt Lake. The protesters raised slogans that Arunachal Pradesh is an "inalienable part of India" and called for immediate restoration of the religious rights of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

“The Chinese authorities have stopped the Islamic practice of namaz five times a day and warned Muslims against keeping beards and their women from putting on burqas (full dress with veil). Tens of thousands of them have been sent to re-education camps so that they become Communists and give up their religious practices,” said Najib Ullah, chairman of the Islamic Association of Peace (IAP), speaking to ETV Bharat.

He said the Chinese authorities had resorted to mass sterilisation of Muslim women in Sinkiang and resorted to extensive torture of Muslim families when they tried to practise Islam in the right spirit. “Sinkiang for Uyghurs is now a huge prison. It is facing demographic aggression through the transfer of tens of thousands of Han Chinese to the province...what happened in Tibet before is now happening in Sinkiang. This is the worst form of state-sponsored majoritarianism,” he said.

The Chinese consulate in Kolkata has witnessed frequent protest demonstrations by local groups supporting the cause of Tibet. The pro-Tibet groups have agitated over the lack of religious and ethnic rights of ethnic Tibetans and efforts to marginalise them by pushing the Han Chinese population into Tibet. Similarly, several other groups protested over frequent Chinese military intrusions across the Line of Actual Control from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh.