Relations between China and Turkey have soured over Beijing’s policies toward the Uighur people, whose traditional home is in the far western region of Xinjiang.
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A diplomatic note was sent last week by Turkey to China, expressing concern that Uighurs, a Muslim minority within China, were forbidden from fasting during the holy month of Ramadan.
China has warned its citizens traveling in Turkey to steer clear of anti-Beijing protests after a number of Chinese tourists, and even Korean tourists, were reportedly attacked by demonstrators.
Protesters marched to the Chinese consulate in Istanbul carrying flags and banners and chanting anti-China slogans outside the building.
Chinese marble and stone firms have started to cancel appointments with Turkish exporters following a series of attacks on Chinese restaurants in İstanbul, according to a statement from İstanbul Mining Exporters’ Union (İMİB) Chairman Ali Kahyaoğlu on Monday.
Muhammet Gokce, a 17-year-old protester in Turkey, states that China has no right to persecute Muslims simply because of their faith. In a July 2 statement on the website of China’s embassy in Turkey it said: “Muslim residents’ religious feelings, needs and customs be fully understood, respected and protected”.
Students at Urumqi’s University of Medicine in Xinjiang, a region with a huge Muslim Uighur population, are being handed out free slices of watermelon in the middle of the day in an attempt to prevent them from fasting during the month of Ramadan.
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“Uighurs reside and work in peace and contentment and luxuriate in freedom of faith beneath the principles within the structure”, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying informed reporters at a daily briefing. Turkey has additionally irked China by expressing concern over the studies of restrictions on Uighurs throughout Ramadan. Beijing has blamed the attacks on Islamist militants who seek to form an independent state called East Turkestan.
