JTA – In an extraordinary intervention, British leader Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said he is “compelled to speak out” about the state of the Uighur Muslim minority in China.
Members of that minority oppose “forced imprisonment, separation of children from their parents and a culture of fear and apprehension,” he wrote in an op-ed Tuesday in the Guardian, leaving him “reflecting on deep sharp pain Jewish followers throughout the ages. ”
China downplayed its Uighur population in 2017, in what many witnesses said was a military act that put thousands of Uighurs in concentration camps, among other restrictions. Chinese officials have opposed this, saying they are targeting finishers.
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Britain’s top rabbits rarely speak out on social issues that do not directly affect their community.
“It is clear that what is happening requires an urgent, independent and unprotected investigation,” Mirvis wrote in the op-ed.
This December 3, 2018, a file photo, guard tower and barbed wire fence surrounds a capture facility in Kunshan Industrial Park in Artux on the west side of Xinjiang province in China. The Associated Press has discovered that the Chinese government is conducting a birth control program aimed at Uighurs, Kazakhs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, even as some of the country’s Han majority encouraging them to have more children. The measures include detention in prisons and camps, such as this facility in Artux, as a punishment for having too many children. (AP / Ng Han Guan image, file)
Those responsible, he said, “must be accountable and Uighurs who are able to escape must have asylum.”
He urged readers to write to the lawyers, the media and others to take action. It was also like the Uyghurs violence against the Blacks violence in South Africa.
“Talk to your friends about what’s happening and encourage them to do the same. Don’t tell anyone that others are responsible, ”Mirvis wrote.
“At the same time, there is a great deal of infertility. While the work is excellent, none of us are free to refuse it. As Nelson Mandela himself said: ‘It always looks impossible until it is done,’ ”Mirvis wrote.
Israeli Times employees contributed to this report.