US teen’s TikTok video on situation in Xinjiang goes viral
BEIJING:A TikTok post by a young woman, pretending to give eyelash curling advice while actually condemning China’s crackdown on Muslims in Xinjiang, has gone viral on the Chinese-owned app that has been accused of censoring anti-Beijing content.
The clip by US teen Feroza Aziz, who describes herself as “17 Just a Muslim”, had millions of views across several social media platforms by Wednesday.
But Aziz said she has been blocked from posting on the hugely popular video platform TikTok for a month after uploading Sunday’s clip slamming China, a claim disputed by the app.
Rights groups say one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim minorities have been rounded up in a network of internment camps across the fractious region of Xinjiang.
China describes them as vocational schools aimed at dampening the allure of Islamist extremism and violence through education and job training.
Aziz starts her video telling viewers, “The first thing you need to do is grab your lash curler.” However, she soon changes the subject, saying, “Then you’re going to put it down and use the phone you’re using right now to search what’s happening in China, how they’re getting concentration camps, throwing innocent Muslims in there, separating families from each other, kidnapping them, murdering them, raping them, forcing them to eat pork, forcing them to drink, forcing them to convert. “This is another Holocaust, yet no one is talking about it. Please be aware, please spread awareness in Xinjiang right now,” she adds, before returning to the eyelash curling tutorial.
A previous account owned by Aziz, reportedly from New Jersey, was blocked by TikTok over another alleged violation, but the app denied the current profile had been frozen.
“TikTok does not moderate content due to political sensitivities,” a spokesperson told AFP.