Uighur Muslims

Presidential hopeful Francis Suarez: ‘What’s a Uighur?’

Miami mayor Francis X. Suarez should pick Gary “Aleppo” Johnson for his 2024 running mate. After a revealing interview on The Hugh Hewitt Show Tuesday morning, it seems the two are both woefully unaware of foreign policy.  Suarez was taking a hardline against China when Hewitt asked him if he would make the Uighurs a part of his campaign. “What — the what, what's a Uighur?” Suarez responded, parroting Johnson’s famous “What is Aleppo?” gaffe during the 2016 election. https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1673687808282697728 After Hewitt scolded the presidential hopeful for his ignorance, Suarez promised, “I’ll look at — what’d you call it, a 'Weeble?’” Cockburn can’t help but think Suarez’s blunder is a bit worse than Johnson.

francis suarez uighur

Mr. Freedom goes to Washington

Cockburn had a sojourn through the corridors of power on Thursday — attending a congressional reception on global human rights in the Rayburn House Office Building, hosted by basketball star Enes Kanter Freedom. Freedom has a storied past when it comes to dealing with dictatorships: the Turkish government revoked his passport in 2017 and jailed his father over his support for Fethullah Gülen, a cleric who is feverishly critical of President Erdoğan. He caused a controversy at the start of this season after donning shoes highlighting the persecution of Uighur Muslims and Tibetans in China while playing for the Boston Celtics. The NBA stopped broadcasting his team’s games, and midway through the season he was cut from their roster.

kanter freedom

The player exposing the NBA’s hypocrisy on China

Remember when “Free Tibet” was a mainstay of the cool, hippie subculture that dominated the Nineties? Back when Hollywood cared about the fate of Buddhism’s Holy Land? Few will even remember that Disney — yes, the same Disney that recently filmed parts of the live-action Mulan in Xinjiang — produced a film, Kundun, about the early life of the Dalai Lama. China then retaliated by banning Disney films, causing the company to backtrack and attempt to bury the Scorsese-directed biopic. Disney's then-CEO even traveled to China to apologize. This series of events should sound familiar by now in the age of Western capitulation to China. Less commonplace these days is the sight of a celebrity sporting imagery of the Dalai Lama and any quaint talk of “freeing Tibet.

enes kanter