US Secretary of State supports Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil in criticism of China’s treatment of Uygurs
- Mike Pompeo says Beijing can stop broadcasts of team’s soccer games but cannot hide rights violations
- Star midfielder slammed Chinese crackdown on social media last week, urging fellow Muslims around the world to speak up about plight of Uygurs
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo renewed his condemnations of China over human rights issues on Tuesday, tweeting out support for Mesut Ozil, a star midfielder for Arsenal of the English Premier League, and the criticisms Ozil had made of China's treatment of ethnic Uygur Muslims.
“China's Communist Party propaganda outlets can censor Mesut Ozil and Arsenal's games all season long, but the truth will prevail,” Pompeo said in his post on Twitter. “The CCP can't hide its gross #human rights violations perpetrated against Uighurs and other religious faiths from the world.”
Last week, Ozil, a German Muslim of Turkish origin, in social media posts called Uygurs “warriors who resist persecution” and criticised both China's crackdown and the silence of Muslims in response.
Arsenal on Saturday tried to distance itself from Ozil's comments after he posted the messages on Twitter and Instagram. “The content he expressed is entirely Ozil's personal opinion,” the team's official account said in a post on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform.
But China's state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday removed Arsenal's game against Manchester City from its broadcast schedule. The following day, Beijing responded by saying Ozil was “blinded by fake news”.
Pompeo's criticism came just a few days after a “phase one” trade deal was reached between the world's two biggest economies, illustrating that the US-China rivalry continues on other fronts.
