Craven Arsenal abandon Mesut Özil over his stance on China’s Uighur persecution

A demonstrator in Istanbul holds up a picture of Arsenal’s Mesut Özil who expressed his horror at China’s treatment of the Uighurs.

The midfielder is in tune with a United Nations panel and human rights groups over the imprisonment of millions of Uighurs but the club chose to raise a white flag.

Arsenal might not be any good at parking the bus. But they sure know how to throw Mesut Özil under one. Imagine the frantic boardroom conversations on Friday after Özil expressed his horror at the imprisonment of millions of Uighurs in China.

The fear of losing profits from shirt sales, commercial deals and future pre-season tours must have choked senior executives like Beijing residents in smog season.


In the club’s rush to post on the Chinese social media site Weibo that Özil’s comments were merely his “personal opinion” before a simpering reminder that “Arsenal has always adhered to the principle of not involving itself in politics” all that was missing was a white flag.

Appeasement is never a good look, even if it is cloaked by apparent indifference. Just his personal opinion? Hardly.

Özil was entirely in tune with a United Nations panel and multiple human rights groups who have spoken out about the imprisonment of millions of Uighur people in internment camps without trial for “re-education” in what has been described as the largest incarceration of one ethnic group since the Holocaust, with multiple accounts of torture, rape and abuse from eyewitnesses who have passed through.

Arsenal’s reaction might have been proportionate if Özil was posting about the need for more NHS spending, or voicing his views on whether Brexit is a good idea. But when human rights groups are warning of systematic “brainwashing” and when one Uighur man who badgered colleagues at work to pray more and not watch porn is tried for inciting ethnic hatred and jailed for 10 years it just sounds callous.