On one side, there are the children of Gaza dying under bombs; on the other, the people of Xinjiang, confined to camps, stripped of their identity and faith.

These sufferings cannot be measured, and therefore cannot truly be compared.

Yet when we place these two atrocities side by side—focusing not on the scale of suffering but on their characteristics and the global reactions they provoke—we encounter conclusions that shake the very foundations of international law’s universality and the European Union’s self-definition.

What is happening in Xinjiang, though heavily censored by China and downplayed by some states fearful of its economic power, is no secret: concentration camps, forced labor, sterilization, constant surveillance…

In response, the EU—however inconsistently and with decreasing frequency in recent months—has issued condemnations and symbolic sanctions. At the very least, it has conveyed a message: “This is unacceptable.”

The EU does not politically or materially support this oppression. The Chinese state alone is the perpetrator of systematic persecution.

Gaza, however, presents a very different picture.

Here, civilian deaths flood our screens daily. The lifeless bodies of children, bombed hospitals, burning refugee camps—all unfolding before our eyes, as if deliberately meant to send us a message.

During this catastrophe, the EU continues to provide Israel with diplomatic protection and military cooperation. The member states are divided—some call for sanctions and a ceasefire, others offer unconditional support. The resulting picture: a weak, fragmented, U.S.-dependent, and—worst of all—complicit European Union.

In Xinjiang, the Uyghurs suffer under an authoritarian regime. China does not claim to be a democracy. But in Gaza, a state that markets itself as “the only democracy in the Middle East”—and that the EU, absurdly, continues to describe as such—is bombing children with European backing. In this context, the EU’s claim to base its policies on “universal values” completely collapses. Human rights no longer function as guarantees for all—they have become bargaining chips, suspended whenever political convenience demands.

And this hypocrisy does not remain confined to foreign policy—it corrodes democracy within the EU as well. The EU, under the vow of “never again” now finds itself complicit in genocide, betraying its own raison d’être. Meanwhile, conscientious Europeans who dare to speak out—academics, journalists, citizens—face police violence, academic exclusion, and media censorship.

Both Gaza and Xinjiang represent grave injustices. But for the EU, Gaza is the more shattering of the two—because it destroys not only human lives, but also the EU’s very claim to be a union of universal values.

For indeed, apostasy is more ruinous than disbelief.

Ahmet Said Aydil