China tightens grip on Muslims in Xinjiang

*China tightens grip on Muslims in Xinjiang*
**
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/19/news/xinjiang.php?page=1


The grand mosque that draws thousands of Muslims each week in this oasis
town has all the usual trappings of piety: dusty wool carpets on which to
kneel in prayer, a row of turbans and skullcaps for men without head wear, a
wall niche facing the holy city of Mecca in the Arabian desert.

But large signs posted by the front door list edicts that are more Communist
Party decrees than Koranic doctrines.
The imam's sermon at Friday prayers must run no longer than a half-hour, the
rules say. Prayer in public areas outside the mosque is forbidden. Residents
of Khotan are not allowed to worship at mosques outside of town.
One rule on the wall says that government workers and nonreligious people
may not be "forced" to attend services at the mosque - a generous wording of
a law that prohibits government workers and Communist Party members from
going at all.
"Of course this makes people angry," said a teacher in the mosque courtyard,
who would give only a partial name, Muhammad, for fear of government
retribution. "Excitable people think the government is wrong in what it
does. They say that government officials who are Muslims should also be
allowed to pray."
To be a practicing Muslim in the vast autonomous region of northwestern
China called Xinjiang is to live under an intricate series of laws and
regulations intended to control the spread and practice of Islam, the
predominant religion among the Uighurs, a Turkic people uneasy with
Chinese rule.
The edicts touch on every facet of a Muslim's way of life. Official versions
of the Koran are the only legal ones. Imams may not teach the Koran in
private, and studying Arabic is allowed only at special government schools.
Two of Islam's five pillars - the sacred fasting month of Ramadan and the
pilgrimage to Mecca called the hajj - are also carefully controlled.
Students and government workers are compelled to eat during Ramadan, and the
passports of Uighurs have been confiscated across Xinjiang to force them to
join government-run hajj tours rather than travel illegally to Mecca on
their own.
Government workers are not permitted to practice Islam, which means the
slightest sign of devotion, a head scarf on a woman, for example, could lead
to a firing.
The Chinese government, which is officially atheist, recognizes five
religions - Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Taoism and Buddhism - and
tightly regulates their administration and practice.
Its oversight in Xinjiang, though, is especially vigilant because it worries
about separatist activity in the region.
Some officials contend that insurgent groups in Xinjiang pose one of the
biggest security threats to China, and the government says the "three
forces" of separatism, terrorism and religious extremism threaten to
destabilize the region. But outside scholars of Xinjiang and terrorism
experts argue that heavy-handed tactics like the restrictions on Islam will
only radicalize more Uighurs.
Many of the rules have been on the books for years, but some local
governments in Xinjiang have publicly highlighted them in the past seven
weeks by posting the laws on Web sites or hanging banners in towns.
Those moves coincided with Ramadan, which ran from September to early
October, and came on the heels of a series of attacks in August that left at
least 22 security officers and one civilian dead, according to official
reports. The deadliest attack was a murky ambush in Kashgar that witnesses
said involved men in police uniforms fighting each other.
The attacks were the biggest wave of violence in Xinjiang since the 1990s.
In recent months, Wang Lequan, the long-serving party secretary of Xinjiang,
and Nuer Baikeli, the chairman of the region, have given hard-line speeches
indicating that a crackdown will soon begin.
Wang said the government was engaged in a "life or death" struggle in
Xinjiang. Baikeli signaled that government control of religious activities
would tighten, asserting that "the religious issue has been the barometer of
stability in Xinjiang."
Anti-China forces in the West and separatist forces are trying to carry out
"illegal religious activities and agitate religious fever," he said, and
"the field of religion has become an increasingly important battlefield
against enemies."
Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang, accounting for 46 percent
of the population of 19 million. Many say that Han Chinese, the country's
dominant ethnic group, discriminate against them based on the most obvious
differences between the groups: language and religion.
The Uighurs began adopting Sunni Islam in the 10th century, although
patterns of belief vary widely, and the religion has enjoyed a surge of
popularity after the harshest decades of Communist rule.
According to government statistics, there are 24,000 mosques and 29,000
religious leaders in Xinjiang. Muslim piety is especially strong in old Silk
Road towns in the south like Kashgar, Yarkand and Khotan.
Many Han Chinese see Islam as the root of social problems in Xinjiang.
"The Uighurs are lazy," said a man who runs a construction business in
Kashgar and would give only his last name, Zhao, because of the political
delicacy of the topic.
"It's because of their religion," he said. "They spend so much time praying.
What are they praying for?"
The government restrictions are posted inside mosques and elsewhere across
Xinjiang. In particular, officials take great pains to publicize the law
prohibiting Muslims from arranging their own trips for the hajj. Signs
painted on mud-brick walls in the winding alleyways of old Kashgar warn
against making illegal pilgrimages. A red banner hanging on a large mosque
in the Uighur area of Urumqi, the regional capital, says, "Implement the
policy of organized and planned pilgrimage; individual pilgrimage
is forbidden."

As dozens of worshipers streamed into the mosque for prayer on a recent
evening, one Uighur man pointed to the sign and shook his head. "We didn't
write that," he said in broken Chinese. "They wrote that."
He turned his finger to a white neon sign above the building that simply
said "mosque" in Arabic script. "We wrote that," he said.
Like other Uighurs interviewed for this article, he agreed to speak on the
condition that his name not be used for fear of retribution by
the authorities.

The government gives various reasons for controlling the hajj. Officials say
that the Saudi Arabian government is concerned about crowded conditions in
Mecca that have led to fatal tramplings, and that Muslims who leave China on
their own sometimes spend too much money on the pilgrimage.

Critics say the government is trying to restrict the movements of Uighurs
and prevent them from coming into contact with other Muslims, fearing that
such exchanges could build a pan-Islamic identity in Xinjiang.

About two years ago, the government began confiscating the passports of
Uighurs across the region, angering many people here. Now virtually no
Uighurs have passports, though they can apply for them for short trips. The
new restriction has made life especially difficult for businessmen who
travel to neighboring countries.

To get a passport to go on an official hajj tour or a business trip,
applicants must leave a deposit of nearly $6,000.

One man in Kashgar said the imam at his mosque, who like all official imams
is paid by the government, had recently been urging congregants to go to
Mecca only with legal tours.

That is not easy for many Uighurs. The cost of an official trip is the
equivalent of $3,700, and hefty bribes usually raise the price.
Once a person files an application, the authorities do a background check of
the family. If the applicant has children, the children must be old enough
to be financially self-sufficient, and the applicant is required to show
that he or she has substantial savings in the bank. Officials say these
conditions ensure that a hajj trip will not leave the family impoverished.
Rules posted last year on the Xinjiang government's Web site say the
applicant must be 50 to 70 years old, "love the country and obey the law."
The number of applicants far outnumbers the slots available each year, and
the wait is at least a year. But the government has been raising the cap.
Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that from 2006 to 2007, more than
3,100 Muslims from Xinjiang went on the official hajj, up from 2,000 the
previous year.

One young Uighur man in Kashgar said his parents were pushing their children
to get married soon so they could prove the children were financially
independent, thus allowing them to qualify to go on the hajj. "Their
greatest wish is to go to Mecca once," the man, who wished to be identified
only as Abdullah, said over dinner.

But the family has to weigh another factor: the father, now retired, was
once a government employee and a Communist Party member, so he might very
well lose his pension if he went on the hajj, Abdullah said.
The rules on fasting during Ramadan are just as strict. Several local
governments began posting the regulations on their Web sites last month.
They vary by town and county but include requiring restaurants to stay open
during daylight hours and mandating that women not wear veils and men shave
their beards.

Enforcement can be haphazard. In Kashgar, many Uighur restaurants remained
closed during the fasting ...