Demba Ba demands solidarity over treatment of Uighur muslims in China

The killing of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody in Minnesota, sparked worldwide protests, with Premier League players kneeling in solidarity and wearing Black Lives Matter badges on their kits after the incident.

In China, it is believed that over a million Uighurs are believed to have been detained without trial in prison camps, with children separated from their parents and women reportedly forcibly sterilised.

Ba, who played for West Ham, Newcastle and Chelsea and had two spells at Shanghai Shenhua before moving to his current club Istanbul Basaksehir, is heartened by the protests against systemic racism against black people, but wants to see the same measures extended to other repressed peoples.

"The Black Lives Matter movement is stronger when non-black people step up for it," Ba told BBC Sport.

"When are we going to see the rest of the world stand up for Muslims?

"I have to try and organise something so football players can get together and, in the meantime, talk about this matter because not a lot of people want to.

"I know there are footballers who want to fight for justice, whether Muslim, Buddhist, Christian, any belief.

"As sportspeople, we have a power we don't even know. If we get together and talk, things change. If we stand up, people stand up with us."

Ba is not the first athlete to have raised the plight of the Uighur people, with Arsenal attacker Mesut Ozil having previously highlighted their persecution on social media, only for his club to distance themselves from his comments.

There are over 12 million Uighur in China, mainly in the Xinjiang region.

They are ethnically Turkic, and while they are officially recognised as a regional minority in the country, the Chinese government has denied them indigenous status.