China’s state broadcaster CCTV on Sunday removed Arsenal’s Premier League game against Manchester City from its broadcast schedule following Mesut Özil’s messages that criticized the country’s policy towards its Muslim Uighur minority.

Axar.az reports citing the Guardian that the Global Times newspaper said on its Twitter account on Sunday that CCTV took the decision after midfielder Özil’s comments on Saturday had “disappointed fans and football governing authorities”.

Özil’s posts called Uighurs “warriors who resist persecution” and criticized both China’s crackdown and the silence of Muslims in response. “(In China) Qurans are burned, mosques were closed down, Islamic theological schools, madrasas were banned, religious scholars were killed one by one. Despite all this, Muslims stay quiet,” Özil, who is a Muslim, said in his posts.

The United Nations and human rights groups estimate that between one million and two million people, mostly ethnic Uighur Muslims, have been detained in harsh conditions in Xinjiang as part of what Beijing calls an anti-terrorism campaign.

China has repeatedly denied any mistreatment of Uighurs.