Moroccan NGO urges Muslim world to support Uighurs against China's 'genocide'

A non-governmental organisation in Morocco urged the Arab world and Islamic organizations to stand against China's long-standing crackdown on Muslim Uighurs in the far western region of Xinjiang, calling the persecution a "genocide."

The Support Committee for the Causes of the Ummah expressed its concerns in a written statement about the religious persecution, ethnic cleansing campaign, human rights violations and abuses targeting Uighur Muslim minorities in East Turkestan, the name that Uighur exiles use for Xinjiang.

The NGO also called on human rights organizations to take action against racist and arbitrary detentions in Xinjiang.

"Muslims and the Arab world should show solidarity with Uighur Muslims against China's persecution," it said.

China is accused of carrying out repressive policies against the Turkic Muslim group, and restraining its religious, commercial and cultural rights.

Up to 1 million people, or about 7 percent of the Muslim population in the Xinjiang region, have been incarcerated in an expanding network of "political re-education" camps, according to U.S. officials and UN experts.

Human Rights Watch accused Beijing of carrying out a "systematic campaign of human rights violations" against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, in a report last September.