JAKARTA: Hundreds of Muslims in Indonesia held a protest on Friday against China’s treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang in front of China’s embassy in Jakarta.

The rally was organised by Islamic group the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) but was attended by members of other Muslim communities under heavy security.

The protest started at noon, after Friday’s mass prayer, and continued until late afternoon despite heavy rains, according to an AFP photographer.

Demonstrators brought posters showing their solidarity with the Uighurs, with placards reading: “China should remove discrimination”, “Government of China is zionist”, and “Save Muslim Uighurs”.Protesters also gathered on Friday in front of the Chinese consulate in the second biggest Indonesian city Surabaya, according to local media.

China has faced international condemnation for rounding up an estimated one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in internment camps in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.Beijing initially denied the existence of the Xinjiang camps, but now says they are “vocational training centres” necessary to combat terrorism.

Few Muslim countries have openly criticised China, as Beijing is a key political and economic partner for a number of them, especially in Southeast Asia.

The Indonesian president’s chief of staff Moeldoko — who goes by one name — said this week that the government will not intervene in the way China was ruling its country.

But increasingly high profile figures are speaking out.

Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil, a German of Turkish origin, and New Zealand rugby superstar Sonny Bill criticised China’s actions and the Muslim community’s silence. Ozil has since come under a barrage of attacks from Beijing.Human rights organisations say up to 1 million ethnic Muslims in Xinjiang have been detained in camps where they are subjected to political indoctrination and pressured to give up their religion.China describes the sites as vocational training centres necessary to fight radicalism in the restive province, and says the trainees work voluntarily.

Indonesian security minister Mohammad Mahfud MD on Thursday said the government summoned Chinese Ambassador Xiao Qian to explain the alleged abuses in Xinjiang.

He said Xiao asserted that China is committed to the protection of human rights and freedom of religion.

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, is reluctant to publicly criticize Beijing, fearing it could jeopardise Chinese investment or invite retaliatory Chinese support for separatists in Indonesia’s predominantly Christian Papua region where a pro-independence insurgency has simmered since the 1960s.