JAKARTA, Indonesia: Several hundred protesters chanted “God is Great” and “Get out, communist!” outside China’s embassy in the Indonesian capital, demanding an end to mass detentions of Uighur Muslims.
The protesters, almost outnumbered by police, waved banners and flags bearing the Islamic declaration of faith.
Protest organizer Slamet Ma’arif told the crowd its brothers were “suffering oppression, torture and cruelty by the Chinese communist government.”
He said Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, should expel China’s ambassador.
An estimated 1 million Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region are detained in camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination and pressured to give up their religion.
The Associated Press reported this week that some are forced to work in factories and tracked clothing made in one camp to an American sportswear company.
Indonesian Muslims protest China’s detention of Uighurs
Indonesian Muslims protest China’s detention of Uighurs
- The protesters, almost outnumbered by police, waved banners and flags bearing the Islamic declaration of faith
- An estimated 1 million Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region are detained in camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination
‘Keep dreaming’: NATO chief says Europe can’t defend itself without US
BRUSSELS: NATO chief Mark Rutte warned Monday Europe cannot defend itself without the United States, in the face of calls for the continent to stand on its own feet after tensions over Greenland.
US President Donald Trump roiled the transatlantic alliance by threatening to seize the autonomous Danish territory — before backing off after talks with Rutte last week.
The diplomatic crisis sparked gave fresh momentum to those advocating for Europe to take a tougher line against Trump and break its military reliance on Washington.
“If anyone thinks here again, that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US — keep on dreaming. You can’t,” Rutte told lawmakers at the European Parliament.
He said that EU countries would have to double defense spending from the five percent NATO target agreed last year to 10 percent and spend “billions and billions” on building nuclear arms.
“You would lose the ultimate guarantor of our freedom, which is the US nuclear umbrella,” Rutte said. “So hey, good luck.”
The former Dutch prime minister insisted that US commitment to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause remained “total,” but that the United States expected European countries to keep spending more on their militaries.
“They need a secure Euro-Atlantic, and they also need a secure Europe. So the US has every interest in NATO,” he said.
The NATO head reiterated his repeated praise for Trump for pressuring reluctant European allies to step up defense spending.
He also appeared to knock back a suggestion floated by the EU’s defense commissioner Andrius Kubilius earlier this month for a possible European defense force that could replace US troops on the continent.
“It will make things more complicated. I think Putin will love it. So think again,” Rutte said.
On Greenland, Rutte said he had agreed with Trump that NATO would “take more responsibility for the defense of the Arctic,” but it was up to Greenlandic and Danish authorities to negotiate over US presence on the island.
“I have no mandate to negotiate on behalf of Denmark, so I didn’t, and I will not,” he said.
Rutte reiterated that he had stressed to Trump the cost paid by NATO allies in Afghanistan after the US leader caused outrage by playing down their contribution.
“For every two American soldiers who paid the ultimate price, one soldier of an ally or a partner, a NATO ally or a partner country, did not return home,” he said.
“I know that America greatly appreciates all the efforts.”
