The protest was organised by Islam21C - a project set up to provide digital representation for British muslims - with support from over 50 Muslim organisations, reports The New Arab.

Protesters took to the streets and social media using the hashtag #Stand4Uyghurs to demand the shutdown of China's concentration camps, which experts estimate over one million Muslims have been incarcerated in, in a Beijing crackdown against those practising Islam in Xinjiang, the news portal reported.

"We are here to show our solidarity as part of the Muslim Ummah... and fulfil our Islamic obligation towards oppressed Muslims in China," one protester Shabih Hasan told The New Arab.

"We want to send a message to the Muslim Rulers around the world to come to the aid of Uyghurs and put pressure on the Chinese government to change [their course of actions]," Hasan said.

"There were a lot of raw emotions and strong feelings [of solidarity for the] suffering of our Uyghur brothers & sisters [at the demonstration]," another protester Mohamed Asif told The New Arab.

Who are Uyghur Muslims?

Uyghur Muslims are a Turkic minority ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. It is now widely publicized that their human rights are being crushed by China and they were sent to "re-education camps" by the communist regime in Beijing.

The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China.

An American representative at the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said in 2018 that the committee had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China have been held in "re-education camps" by the Chinese authorities.