A “march against the Uyghur genocide” took place this Saturday, December 3 in Paris. A few hundred demonstrators marched from Place de la Bastille to show support for the Uyghur people and protests across China.
With our special correspondent, Edgar Groleau
In the middle of the demonstrators, Adila shouts the slogans, Uighur flag on her back. He arrived in France twelve years ago, and knows that in his native Xinjiang, in China, his relatives cannot protest.
In China, it is impossible, the Uyghurs cannot make demonstrations like that. That’s why we’re here today. There are a lot of French, there are a lot of Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, Chinese, they participated in the demonstration in support of the Uyghurs. We are very happy.
He is satisfied with the manifestation, others feel almost useless. Nejat is also Uyghur. Fake blood on the cheek and sign in hand, it shows the faces of Uyghurs who died in a fire at the end of November. However, it is not certain that manifesting changes things.
Does it help anything, I don’t know. I can’t do anything other than that. It’s really dramatic.
A feeling of helplessness despite the presence of French politicians in the front row of the march. They see these events as essential, like MEP Raphaël Glucksmann.
These mobilizations, they have already succeeded in obtaining concrete things, the fact that European leaders are already talking about it. So, we break the silence that allows the crime.
A crime that the French National Assembly recognized as genocide.
►Read again: Xinjiang: the UN refuses to discuss the abuses committed by China