A group which had gathered in front of Thailand’s embassy in Turkey’s capital of Ankara to protest Bangkok’s expulsion of nearly 100 Uighur Muslims back to China attacked a woman they thought was Chinese on Thursday.
The woman was walking in front of the protesters when she got attacked by the angry group. Police officers intervened and took her to safety.
The Doğan news agency said the woman was a tourist but her nationality was not known.
Protests have been held across Turkey over the last week to condemn bans imposed on religious practices by the predominantly Muslim Uighur people in China’s far western region of Xinjiang, or East Turkistan as is known in Turkey, and the killings of Uighurs by Chinese police. During the protests, a Chinese restaurant, its owner Turkish and its cook ironically Uighur, was vandalized, while a group of Korean tourists mistaken for Chinese citizens were attacked in İstanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district.
The Thai honorary consulate in İstanbul was also attacked by protesters on Wednesday night.