News:

35 Uighur Muslims who were kept waiting for 18 days in transit at Istanbul Ataturk Airport since fleeing to Turkey from China on March 25 were finally given permission to enter the country on 12th of April. The group, which included pregnant women and children, had arrived in Turkey in an attempt to escape persecution in their homeland of East Turkestan (Xinjiang), China. One child had been rushed to hospital during the lengthy wait. The group was not legally entitled to enter Turkey, due to missing documents.

Comment:

Firstly, it is highly cynical to make the whole story public only one day before the humiliation reached a "so-called" end, as these people had to wait at an airport-hall for 18 days under inhumane conditions. Additionally, after entering the country these people are awaiting an ambiguous future and a hard life in camps. Secondly, once again Erdogan's Government who just came out from the local elections with a so-called triumph for Islam, has proved that it is nothing more than Ruwaibida talking, as it made promises to work for the benefit of Islam, and therefore for the Muslims. Is it not the primary duty of a Muslim leader, as the leading politicians and leaders of Turkey claim to be, to protect all Muslims, no matter from which part of the world they come, and embrace them with open arms? These Uighur Muslims were forced to seek refuge in Turkey through their own means, as Turkey had not even sent an army to take them out of their suppression!

These are Muslims who had to flee from a Muslim land, where they had to endure all kinds of suppression, torture, murder and imprisonment due to a non-Muslim regime. They sought refuge and help from a Government that claims to be Islamic, and now they had to suffer another form of humiliation due to non-Islamic nationalistic laws of the secular capitalist democracy in Turkey, set up by a kufr ideology. The whole situation becomes even more shameful for the Turkish Government, in the light of the fact, that the Uighurs after embracing Islam helped the Khilafah "Caliphate" in the greatest conquests in Islamic history, especially against China up to the Chinese wall.

Remember the period from the 15th to 17th century where the Muslims of al-Andalus were persecuted, oppressed and murdered by the Spanish inquisitors. Khalifah Bayezid II sent Admiral Kemal Reis in 1502 to rescue them. Khidir Reis (Barbaros) in 1530, and later Admirals Turgut, Piyale and Salih rescued more than 70,000 Muslims in numerous expeditions by the order of Suleyman the Magnificent. Khalifah Ahmed I in the 17th century did likewise, giving the Muslims of Al-Andalus a new home in North Africa and in Istanbul. Additionally those Khulafah provided the refugees - Muslims as well as non-Muslims - prosperous living conditions and safety in their new homelands. They did not pack them in refugee camps and let them struggle for a future as the Turkish government does with its refugees.

This should be the true behaviour of Muslim leaders who seriously care for the Muslims - and not only for the Turkish people! Therefore this Ummah needs urgently an upright leader, a Khalifah, who removes these Western imposed-artificial borders between our Muslim lands, along with the corrupt and divisive system which is actually implemented, instead of these regimes and rulers who maintain and embrace the kufr capitalist nationalistic ideology. It is time to re-unite this Ummah under the shade of a just Khalifah, who will bring back security and protection to the Muslims all around the world!

Written for The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Umm Khalid

Member of The Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir