The Zeytinburnu Brotherhood Platform, including many non-governmental organizations, such as the Prophet Lovers Foundation, IHH, Erdem-Der, Elif Lam Mim Association, Education Union Müceddit Foundation, East Turkistan Maarif Association, held a meeting to support the East Turkestan issue and support the East Turkestan Muslims.

At the meeting held at IHH Zeytinburnu Representation, attention was paid to the persecution and rights violations in East Turkestan.

Hüseyin Eroğlu, corporate relations coordinator of IHH Zeytinburnu pointed out that the press ignored the persecution in East Turkistan.

"These problems are the problems that should be on our agenda," he said.

"China sees Muslims as a threat to itself"

Speaking at the meeting, East Turkistan Maarif Association Vice President Abdul Ahad Er said East Turkestan was actually an independent state, but in 1949 they tried to destroy Muslims in the region with the Chinese occupation.

Underlining the fact that 3 million Muslims have been kept in Chinese prisons since 2017, Er said: "Consequently, cultural disturbances have arisen. Our religious beliefs have been banned. Even now, the prayer is forbidden."

Stating that China sees Muslims there as a threat to it, Er noted that more than 3 million people have been imprisoned since 2017, including academics, scholars and craftsmen.

"They [China] are torturing them to apart them from their language and religion. They make inmates to communist ideologies. We have seven great scholars who were martyred as a result of these tortures."

Er underlined that they cannot get more information due to the lack of communication with the region.

"Muslims must come together"

Brotherhood Platform President Şahmerdan Tunç stated that Allah orders brotherhood [unity] to the Muslim after the faith.

"We shouldn’t come together just because we have common enemies. We must not come together because this is the order of Allah. We must come together with the consciousness that this is worship," Tunç noted.

ILKHA