Anti-China protests in Türkiye

(Baonghean.vn) - Many people burned Chinese flags, attacked Chinese restaurants, and even people who looked like Chinese were attacked.

In the past 10 days, many anti-China protests have taken place in Türkiye.

The reason is to protest the ban on the Muslim Uighurs in China from practicing the fasting month of Ramadan. It is known that Turkish Muslims and Uighurs living in the far west of China have the same race, culture and beliefs.

"Our people are saddened by the news that Uighurs in the Xinjiang region are banned from fasting and other religious activities," the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week.

Chinese flag burned

In response, China said it has always respected its people's freedom of belief and that the allegations of restrictions on the Uighurs were unfounded and the case had been distorted by the Western media: "No state agency, organization or individual can force their people to believe in a religion or not. They also cannot discriminate between those who have their own beliefs and those who do not."

However, many protests still took place in Istanbul, the country's largest city, and some other places.

Mr. Cihan Yavuz, owner of Happy China restaurant, who was also a victim of the attacks, said: “People are afraid to come to my restaurant because they are afraid of being attacked. Using violence as a form of protest is unacceptable. If they want to protest against the actions of the Chinese government, they can protest in front of the Chinese embassy, ​​not attack innocent people.”

Chaos also broke out last Saturday when the Grey Wolves group of youths from the far-right MHP party held a march.

Miray Hamit, a tour guide, said one of her group of tourists was attacked by a group of four or five people with knives after being identified as Chinese: “They asked us where we came from, and when we told them we were Chinese, they attacked one of us.”

Turkish media reported that a group of South Korean tourists were also attacked because they were assumed to be Chinese.

The head of the Grey Wolves in Istanbul, Ahmet Yigit Yildirim, denied the allegations of attacking the Chinese and said there were only clashes between MHP protesters and police. He also said that ensuring the safety of tourists visiting Türkiye was the responsibility of the organization, which did not support violence in any form.

The Chinese government has issued an advisory for Chinese citizens traveling to Türkiye, warning them to stay away from protests and not to take photos or film protest groups.

Vo Ngoc Trung