IMAMS in Xinjiang spoke out against Western misinformation about the Chinese crackdown on terrorism in the region on Thursday in an Eid event.

Leaders of five mosques addressed the meeting, detailing local activities marking Ramadan and Eid to counter accusations that China is suppressing freedom of worship.

Mamat Juma, imam of China’s oldest mosque — Id Kah in Kashgar — said the anti-terror campaign benefited Han Chinese and Uighurs alike. His father Juma Tayir, who was previously imam at the mosque, was murdered by Islamist separatists in 2014 in an attack openly celebrated by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (Etim), an al-Qaida-affiliated terror group, which the US-funded World Uyghur Congress refused to condemn.

Xinjiang Islamic Association chair Abdureqip Tomurniyaz said the US accusations of “genocide” against Uighur Muslims — based on debunked statistical analysis by evangelist Adrian Zenz — were simply a foreign policy tool used by a Washington that wanted to “contain China’s rise and alienate relations between China and Muslim countries.”