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China cracks down on its Muslims
The Washington
Times [2001-11-23]
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
BEIJING —
China is tightening control over ethnic Uighur Muslims
in its tense Xinjiang province, detaining people for
showing signs of dissent or for meeting with
foreigners and forbidding many from fasting during the
holy month of Ramadan, sources said last week.
More than 3,000 Uighurs have been detained since
the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United
States, many simply for showing any kind of
dissatisfaction with the Chinese government, the
German-based Uighur group, the East Turkestan
Information Center, said.
Among those detained was a group of seven Uighurs
who worked for a travel agency and met with foreign
tourists after work, said Dilixat Raxit, the group's
spokesman.
"They were investigated for one month. The people
they met with were only tourists," Mr. Raxit said. Six
of them have been released.
The incident is similar to one reported by a
French tourist who said he was interrogated for nine
hours last month after he and two other tourists had
dinner with a friendly Uighur woman they met during
their visit to Xinjiang in China's northwest.
The tourist said police were waiting for them
when they returned to their hotel and demanded to know
where they had been and why they had spent time at the
woman's house.
"They interrogated us in two rooms. They told us
to drive them to where we were. They went back to the
girl's home and took her ID card. We tried to call her
later to find out how she is, but we couldn't reach
her," he said.
Mr. Raxit said the current situation in Xinjiang
is so tense that Muslims are afraid of speaking with
the majority Han Chinese, whom the government has over
the years encouraged to move into a previously Uighur-dominated
Xinjiang.
"To the Han Chinese, they dare only smile. Many
are even afraid to refuse a cigarette during Ramadan,
or defend himself in a fight for fear of being labeled
a separatist," he said.
Some of the Turkic-speaking Uighurs want a
separate state of East Turkestan, and sporadic riots
and bombings over the years in Xinjiang province have
been blamed on Uighur separatists.
The latest reports seem to back up claims by
human rights groups that Beijing is using the global
anti-terrorism campaign to step up repression of
Uighurs it fears hold separatists tendencies.
Local and overseas sources said China has ordered
Xinjiang Muslims in universities and schools to ignore
religious rules during the holy month of Ramadan,
forbidding them from fasting and ordering women not to
tie scarves around their heads.
A member of the staff at Kashgar Teachers'
Training College in western Xinjiang on Saturday told
AFP the school has banned fasting in previous years,
but was increasing pressure on students since the
September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
The university's Communist Party committee has
conducted many "anti-separatism" meetings for
students, he said.
"Between 4:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m., students cannot
turn on the lights because school officials don't want
to make it easy for them to fast during Ramadan [by
eating before dawn]," he said.
"Teachers and administrators have been asked to
sign statements saying they will accept responsibility
if any student in their class is caught fasting."
Last month, a female student was expelled for
disobeying school orders to stop performing the
five-times-a-day prayers that all devout Muslims
perform, he said. She was praying in her dorm room
when discovered.
Forty religious leaders were called to a
three-day meeting in the capital, Urumqi, which ended
last Friday, in which they were shown anti-American
videos portraying Muslims in America being attacked
and afraid to leave home after the September 11
attacks, Mr. Raxit said.
This was deemed necessary because Beijing was
wary of increasing American influence in Afghanistan,
which borders Xinjiang, the group said.
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ETIC REPORT 2000 
