THREAD >>
This tweet below has been rattling around my head all morning. @britsforuyghurs arranged a protest, calling for a stop to the #UyghurGenocide. The number of people in attendance fills me with a personal shame. Read their handmade signs.

1/13 https://twitter.com/BritsForUyghurs/status/1314260077424111616?s=20

We're not dealing in speculation, exaggeration or rumours here. We're dealing in facts.

"FORCED STERILISATION of Uyghur Women".

Organs harvested. Hair shaved and sold. Why does that not shake us ALL to the core of our bones?

2/13

This respectfully asks President Xi, one of the most powerful people on earth, to stop a very public genocide. Xi's representatives sit on @UNHumanRights Council - his ambassadors tell us all to respect human rights - as China disappears an entire people under our noses.

3/13

"CLOSE THE CAMPS". These aren't temporary displacement camps or refugee camps on borders, blessed with Red Cross or UN assistance. These are camps where people are taken against their will, dehumanised, tortured, sterilised, organs harvested (and killed?).

4/13

After 16 hours, this post has 3 comments, 81 retweets and 166 likes. I've posted pictures asking what coloured banana is the perfect ripeness and it's eclipsed these numbers in a few short hours. Why? Why is this not being shared in the thousands?

5/13

My main shame is, why are the pictures of only 2, 4, 7 or max. 13 people in Central London? Why are we all not there? Figures suggest 1-2 MILLION people are in camps because of WHAT THEY ARE, not what they've done. That's the combined populations of Birmingham and Leeds.

6/13

I confess, my knowledge of this stain on modern civilisation is something I'm only at the beginning of learning about - primarily through information shared on here by @BritsForUyghurs and @MaajidNawaz. But the numbers alone are shocking.

7/13 https://twitter.com/BritsForUyghurs/status/1311687004871168001?s=20

As someone who is defensive against the misuse of The Holocaust to further other narratives with misplaced shock tactics to push a point on Brexit, or animal rights, or trans issues, I'm uncomfortable making like-for-like comparisons. However, I will say, when Jews...

8/13

...reflect on this period of our history, when our recent ancestors were herded into camps because of what we were - tortured, brutalised, dehumanised, burned and disappeared at the hands of a civilised nation, we ask "How did this happen under the noses of good people?"

9/13

Was it because Jews and the other victims of Nazism were miles away from the UK? Because it was too hard to compute? Because the UK was not committing the crime? Because people just didn't care? Was it because 'they' didn't look like us? Maybe it was all of these things.

10/13

Yet here we are again - another genocide hiding in plain sight. A powerful nation, in full view, attempting to remove the existence of a people who don't align with their world view. We, the good people of the UK, must be able to put more than 13 people out in protest.

11/13

I can do more. We must all do more. We cannot simply shrug and hope someone else picks up the slack. The #UyghurGenocide is happening now. A quote (misattributed to MLK) states, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"

12/13

Maybe the first step is solidarity in numbers. Write to your MP. And let's not allow 13 people to be the sum total of protest again. Follow @BritsForUyghurs and let's strive to create noise that makes the persecutors sit up and notice. >> End

#Uyghurs #Uighurs #UighurGenocide