China pulled coverage of a soccer match between England’s Arsenal and Manchester City clubs after a member of the Arsenal team criticized China over social media.
Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil bashed China for the country’s treatment of Uighur Muslims on Friday. The Chinese Communist Party, which controls the government, has forced a large number of Uighurs into detention camps.
“Qurans are burned, mosques were closed down, Islamic theological schools, madrasas were banned, religious scholars were killed one by one. Despite all this, Muslims stay quiet,” Ozil, who is Muslim, said in a post on Twitter and Instagram.
Chinese censors responded by shutting down coverage of Arsenal’s Premier League game versus Manchester City, played on Sunday. The Chinese Football Association reacted to Ozil’s post with “great indignation and disappointment.” Arsenal distanced itself from its player’s statement.
“The content he expressed is entirely Ozil’s personal opinion,” Arsenal said. “As a football club, Arsenal always adheres to the principle of not being involved in politics.”
The NBA in the United States faced a similar dilemma in October when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted out support for the Hong Kong protesters demonstrating against growing Chinese influence over their government. China has canceled its Rockets coverage and demanded that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver fire Morey. Silver said “there’s no chance that’s happening.”
China has built a system of “vocational training and education centres” in its Xinjiang region, known for surveillance technology used by police to track “terrorists.” China claims to have arrested and interned 13,000 “terrorists” in its camps using the technology.
Leaked documents have shown that China used funds donated from the World Bank, which the U.S. is a leading supporter of, to fund its surveillance system and buy materials such as barbed wire and tear gas to construct and police the camps.
