Pakistani cricket star deletes tweet supporting Uyghur Muslims

Former Pakistan cricket captain Shahid Afridi has seemingly pulled back his support for Uyghur Muslims after he deleted a tweet imploring Prime Minister Imran Khan to speak up against China’s persecution of the minority.

“Hearing of atrocities dedicated up against the #UighurMuslims is heartbreaking. We request @ImranKhanPTI to speak up against this; talk of uniting the Muslim ummah includes our brothers & sisters in China also,” he had written in a Twitter post on Sunday.

The cricket star is known to have previously met Khan and reportedly has a good rapport with him.

His tweet came and went as other international sports figures have begun voicing their support for the Muslims in China, which has disappointed Pakistani fans who look up to the legendary cricketer and were hoping his tweet would pave the way for others to follow suit and speak up against Beijing.

Afridi has yet to issue any statement regarding the circumstances that made him delete the tweet.

Arsenal soccer star Mesut Özil shared a heartfelt tweet two weeks ago asking “where are Muslims?”, in which the Turkish-origin German player lamented the lack of outrage in the Muslims world toward the oppression faced by Uyghur minority in East Turkestan.

Muslim Rugby star and former All Blacks back Sonny Bill Williams followed the lead of Arsenal soccer player Mesut Ozil and issued a message of support for China's ethnic minority Uighur Muslim community.

"Its a sad time when we choose economic benefits over humanity #Uyghurs," Williams wrote on Twitter, using an alternative spelling. The tweet included an image depicting Chinese oppression against the group. The post had received more than 9,000 likes and almost 6,000 retweets by Monday evening.

China promised to support Pakistan’s economy last year as Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan spoke of his country’s “very difficult” economic situation amid a burgeoning financial crisis.

Beijing and Islamabad are currently working on a $60-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the infrastructure program China launched as part of its flagship “Belt and Road” project.

Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group that make up 45 percent of the population of Xinjiang, accuse China of carrying out repressive policies that restrain their religious, commercial and cultural activities.

As many as 1 million people, or about 7 percent of Xinjiang’s Muslim population, have been incarcerated in a sprawling network of "political re-education" camps, according to U.S. and UN studies. Beijing says that its camps in Xinjiang are "vocational training centers.”

Last September, the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report accusing Beijing of a "systematic campaign of human rights violations" against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

China has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uighurs.