The largest Muslim advocacy organization in the US urged Hilton Worldwide Holdings on Tuesday to drop plans to build a hotel on the site of a bulldozed mosque in China’s Xinjiang region.
The call by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) came after a report this week by the British daily The Telegraph that China is building a new commercial center, including an upscale Hilton Hotel, on the site where a mosque was initially demolished.
CAIR’s National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said Hilton has a unique opportunity to take a clear stance against China’s ongoing genocide of Uyghur Muslims and set an example for other prominent corporations.
Read more: All is not well in Xi’s China
“Hilton must stand on the right side of history by announcing it will cancel this project and cease any operations in the Uyghur region of China until its government ends its persecution of millions of innocent people,” Mitchell said in a statement.
Since 2017, China has carried out massive and systematic abuses against Muslims living in Xinjiang.
China’s alleged erosion of religious, cultural and human rights for more than 1 million ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang in the last decade has enraged western countries, prompting sanctions against Chinese officials and firms.
https://twitter.com/ZaidJilani/status/1404883493000200197
Officials are accused of putting Uyghurs in concentration camps which China defines as re-education and training centers. Beijing vehemently denies rights violations of its citizens.
No Mercy for Uighur Muslims
A rare and huge leak of Chinese government documents has shed new light on a security crackdown on Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region, where President Xi Jinping ordered officials to act with “absolutely no mercy” against separatism and extremism, The New York Times reported.
Human rights groups and outside experts say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been rounded up in a network of internment camps across the far-western region.
Read more: China’s Leaked Documents Reveal ‘No Mercy’ for Uighur Muslims
The 403 pages of internal papers obtained by the New York Times provide an unprecedented look into the highly-secretive Communist Party’s controversial crackdown, which has come under increasing international criticism, especially from the United States.
Anadolu with additional input by GVS News Desk