The riots in China’s Xinjiang region and the subsequent Chinese crackdown on the Muslim Uighurs have drawn a muted response from the Muslim world — with the exception of Turkey. The World’s Aaron Schachter reports. Listen

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JEB SHARP: I’m Jeb Sharp, and this is The World. More than 180 people have died in ethnic violence in China’s Xinjiang region. Human rights groups say most of the victims have been members of the Uigher minority. Uighers are Muslims, and yet, most leaders of Muslim countries have been muted in their response to the Chinese crackdown. There’s been one notable exception, Turkey’s prime minister. Recep Tayyip Erdogan was especially outspoken, because Turks share ethnic bonds with the Turkic speaking Uighers. Today, China urged the Turkish leader to retract his remarks. The World’s Aaron Schachter reports.

AARON SCHACHTER: Thousands of protestors gathered in Istanbul this past weekend to denounce China’s actions.  They chanted “China the murderer” and “Free East Turkestan”, that’s the name some Muslims give to Xinjiang province. And Turkey’s Prime Minister suggested that China’s actions against the Uighers constituted a kind of genocide. That didn’t sit well with China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang.

QIN GANG: [TRANSLATED TO ENGLISH FROM CHINESE] The Uigher population 60 years ago, in 1949, was 3.29 million. Now, the Uigher population in Xinjiang has increased to about 10 million. The population has tripled. What kind of genocide is this?

AARON SCHACHTER: Other critics of Turkey’s Prime Minister also took issue with his reference to genocide. They accuse Tayyip Erdogan of pandering to his largely conservative Muslim constituency. But Turkish analyst Abdulhamit Bilici says arguing over words misses the point.

ABDULHAMIT BILICI: We can debate if those definitions are proper or helpful for the situation.  But I guess the question is to ask why other people, other countries, other prime ministers are keeping quiet. If there is a tragedy, any person has a responsibility to do something to improve the situation.

AARON SCHACHTER: But other prime ministers and world leaders, especially those in Muslim powerhouses like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, may be keeping quiet people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.  Adbullah Bouhabib heads the Issam Fares Center for Lebanon.

ABDULLAH BOUHABIB: What China is using to stop the revolt, or whatever it is, any other Arab regime would do the same here.

AARON SCHACHTER: There are other reasons the Muslim world hasn’t made a stink over what’s happening in western China. First, many Muslims don’t realize that Uighers share their faith. Then there’s the concern of disrupting business with China, a major trading partner in the region. And Lebanese political analyst Michael Young says, many in the Middle East don’t have time or energy for problems half way around the world.

MICHAEL YOUNG: I think that this notion of trans-Islamic solidarity is often overplayed in the West with respect to reality. We have to understand China is a very foreign place to a lot of people in the Middle East.  I mean, we don’t see a mobilization of Western societies for what happened in the Balkans, and I don’t think we should expect a mass mobilization in the Arab world for what happens to Muslims in China.

AARON SCHACHTER: Still, the violence affecting the Uighers is making an impact in parts of the Middle East.  Iranian clerics have condemned the crack down. The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference has expressed deep concern. And news reports quote residents of Saudi Arabia comparing the way Uighers are being treated in China to the way Muslims are being treated in Palestine. That’s about as serious a denunciation as one can make in this part of the globe.  For The World, I’m Aaron Schachter in Beirut.

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