LE SOIR’S HEADLINE DISCRIMINATES AGAINST CHINESE MUSLIM POPULATION

Trivialisation often goes hand in hand with discrimination, as is the case in an article by the Belgian newspaper Le Soir,  in the article “China and its Muslims, a complicated relationship”.  

Get the Trolls Out! Belgian partner European Network on Religion and Belief sent a letter of complaint to Le Soir, requesting the headline is changed. The phrasing “China and its Muslims” stigmatizes and denigrates the Chinese Muslim population, presenting them as a separate part of the country. 

The article starts with a Uighur family that was escorted from Belgium's embassy in Beijing by police and explores the “difficult relationship between the Chinese communist party and the country’s Muslim minorities”.  

The Chinese government has been accused of serious human rights violations against Muslims in Xinjiang: mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment, as well increasingly pervasive control on daily life according to a Human Rights Watch report.

At the time of writing, Le Soir has not issued a reply to ENORB.