Ramadan Lunches For China's Muslims

Ramadan Lunches For China's Muslims

Muslim Uyghur employees at government departments in China's northwest are being offered free lunches during the holy fasting month of Ramadan

Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, are implementing a campaign to offer free lunches during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, when eating is proscribed until sundown.
The lunches are being offered in government departments to ethnic Uyghur and Han Chinese officials alike, employees said.

Uyghur exiles say that Chinese authorities have previously offered free lunches during Ramadan as a means of determining who is fasting.

An official who answered the phone at the Party committee offices of Hotan prefecture, in the south of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, confirmed the plan.

"This is the decision of the government leaders," she said, but declined to give further details.

Uyghur employee at the Hotan government's department of taxation confirmed that the free lunches were on offer during the fasting month, which will end with the fast-breaking festival of Eid Al-Fitr this year on Oct.
"We have to follow the rules and regulations as well," he said. "Our department doesn't provide lunch every day for employees, but they provide a free lunch on certain days in every week" Meals for Uyghur staff
"They provide Uyghur meals for Uyghur employees and Chinese food for the Chinese employees of the department. We don't pay for the lunch," he said."I don't know where the money comes from. Maybe the senior managers pay for it."


Several callers to RFA's Uyghur listener hotlines complained of similar campaigns throughout Xinjiang. "The government's campaign of providing free lunch during the Ramadan hurts me a lot," one listener said.China Tuesday lashed out at US accusations that it was stepping up curbs on religious freedom. The U.S. State Department's annual report on religious freedom worldwide said the situation in China worsened over the last year while also singling out North Korea, Egypt, and Iran for curbs on freedoms of belief.

Interference in China's affairs
"China is strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed to the US accusation in its religious freedom report," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said in a statement. "The criticism of China's religious policy and situation is groundless, violates the basic norms of international relations and is interference in China's internal affairs." The U.S. report said that the Chinese government's repression of religious freedom "intensified" in some areas, including Tibet and Xinjiang.

China's Turkic-speaking Uyghurs, who are believed to number around 11 million, have already complained of government restrictions during this year's Ramadan. Police in Lop county, Hotan, said they were forcing men to shave their beards and uncovering veiled women "by force, if necessary", while Muslim-run restaurants were being pushed into signing pledges to remain open during the fasting period, as is the custom in other Islamic regions of the world. Officials in Atush city, in the far west of the remote Tarim Basin were dispatched to count all the restaurants run by Muslims and to “educate” their owners into signing the agreement of their own accord, the municipal Web site said. Official Web sites in other parts of the region cited similar measures.

'Pressure to sign pledges'

Similar restrictions are in force in Toqsu [in Chinese, Xinhe] and Shaya counties, near Kucha, where up to 10 alleged Muslim attackers were reportedly killed after assaulting a local police station Aug. 10.

During Ramadan, Muslims who are able should take no food, water, or cigarettes during daylight hours. Restaurants in Muslim countries often close during the day, re-opening to break the fast after sunset.

Exiled Uyghur groups said Uyghur government cadres throughout Xinjiang had been forced to sign “letters of responsibility” promising to avoid fasting, evening prayers, or other religious activities. Special groups have been set up in schools to educate Uyghur teachers and students not to fast, and to monitor their activities on pain of expulsion from school, the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress said in a statement signed by spokesman Dilxat Raxit. The Uyghurs, many of whom chafe under Beijing's rule, formed two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 40s during the Chinese civil war and the Japanese invasion. Beijing has launched a campaign against separatism, styling it a war on Islamist terrorism. It has also accused "hostile forces" in the West of fomenting unrest in the strategically important and resourch-rich region, which borders several countries in Central Asia.
Original reporting by Gulchire for RFA’s Uyghur service. Translated by Omer Kanat. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie and edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.

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Uyghur Radio Worker Sacked, Detained

2008-09-08

An official radio station in Xinjiang sacks an outspoken employee, who is now detained.

Undated photo supplied by RFA listener.

Mehbube Ablesh.

HONG KONG—Authorities at a Chinese government-run radio station in the remote Xinjiang region have fired and detained an ethnic Uyghur woman working there, apparently for criticizing government policy, Uyghur sources have said.

Mehbube Ablesh, 29, was removed from her post at Xinjiang People's Radio Station several weeks ago, according to two colleagues at the government-run station in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Ablesh, who studied journalism, was employed in the station’s advertising department, although her exact duties there weren’t immediately clear.

“She was fired a month ago. Now we hear she is in prison and we don’t have any information about Mehbube’s prison situation,” one colleague said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We tried to lead her in the right direction but she didn’t listen to us.”

"Our department is a journalism department—people should be very careful because it is a very sensitive place."

Uyghur employee

“Management already held a meeting and told all 60 employees that Mehbube committed mistakes. She wrote articles for Web sites. I don’t know which Web sites, and I don’t know what she wrote about or what she discussed, [but] she wrote articles for Web sites and so she has been arrested by the police,” the colleague said.

Another colleague confirmed her removal from the station “about one month ago."

A third source, based in Europe, said he had been in contact with Ablesh and that in her messages she had sharply criticized top provincial leaders and the government's policy of requiring Mandarin-language teaching. She may have been detained because of this, he said.

“Our department is a journalism department—people should be very careful because it is a very sensitive place,” the first source said.

"She prayed. But she didn’t wear a headscarf. What she did was wrong. The government provided her everything—a good job, everything. It is the same everywhere, in America too. If the government provides you a good job, everything, and you speak out against the government, you will be punished. Isn’t it so?”

Multi-lingual radio
A radio station employee, contacted by telephone, declined to discuss the matter.

"It is too sensitive to talk about issues like this. You can verify the issue through other channels. It may be a normal thing to talk about it somewhere else, but this is Xinjiang. It’s too sensitive," the employee said.

Radio employees declined to comment further and referred questions to the police and Public Security Bureau. Officials at both offices declined to comment.

Xinjiang People's Radio currently broadcasts a total of 111 hours daily in Uyghur, Mandarin, Kazak, Mongolian, and Kyrgyz, according to its official Web site.

Following a string of violent attacks in remote, northwestern Xinjiang, Chinese authorities are stepping up restrictions on Muslim Uyghurs during the fasting month of Ramadan. Police say women are being forced to uncover their faces in public, while restrictions on teaching Islam to Uyghur children are being intensified.

Restaurants run by Muslims are forbidden to close in daytime during the fasting month, as is the custom in other Islamic regions of the world, according to official statements on government Web sites in Xinjiang.

Exiled Uyghur groups said Uyghur government cadres throughout Xinjiang had been forced to sign “letters of responsibility” promising to avoid fasting, evening prayers, or other religious activities.

Xinjiang is a vast region bordering Central Asia rich in natural resources with several key strategic borders with China’s neighbors.

China is home to up to 11 million Uyghurs, a Turkic-speaking minority group that formed two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 40s during the Chinese civil war and the Japanese invasion.

In its 2008 report on human rights worldwide, New York-based Human Rights Watch cited "drastic controls over religious, cultural, and political expression" by Muslims in Xinjiang.

"There is widespread evidence that the government uses isolated incidents to conflate any expression of public discontent with terrorism or separatism," it said.

Original reporting by Shohret Hoshur for RFA's Uyghur service. Additional reporting by Qiaolong for RFA's Mandarin service. Translated by Omer Kanat. Uyghur service director: Dolkum Kamberi. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.

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China says West inciting unrest in Xinjiang

China says West inciting unrest in Xinjiang

Fri 12 Sep 2008, 8:51 GMT

BEIJING (Reuters) - The governor of west China's tense Xinjiang region has lashed out at Western countries for instigating unrest in the area, but said their schemes would never succeed as only very few people supported separatism.

Oil-rich Xinjiang, strategically located on the borders of Central Asia, has been rocked by sometimes violent unrest this year, including the killing of 16 armed police just before the Beijing Olympics, blamed by China on Muslim militants.

The region's governor, Nuer Baikeli (Nur Bekri in Uyghur), said "Western hostile forces" unhappy with China's rise were directly supporting groups opposed to Beijing's rule in the region in the name of democracy and human rights.

"They all along have been direct behind-the-scenes backers and patrons of the 'three forces' at home and abroad," Baikeli said, referring to terrorism, separatism and extremism.

"They are the most important external factor in the continuing rise of ethnic splittist, destructive activities in Xinjiang, and the large threat they pose from abroad to our national security and social stability will exist for a long time," he added.

"Our struggle against ethnic splittism, in essence, is a struggle against Western hostile forces' plots to 'Westernise' and 'split' our country, it is the continuation of the struggle the Chinese people have had for 100 years or more against imperialist plans to split China."

Baikeli's strident and uncompromising comments, in a speech to Communist Party officials, were carried on central government website www.china.com.cn on Friday. They had appeared earlier in the week in the Xinjiang Daily.

Many of Xinjiang's 8 million largely Muslim Uighurs chafe at the strict controls on religion that China enforces and resent influxes of Han Chinese migrant workers and businesses. Uighurs make up slightly less than half of the region's people, and most of the rest are Han.

Human rights critics say China's tight grip in the region only further estranges Uighurs.

Baikeli said Xinjiang was engaged in a life and death fight against terrorism, and the battle was entering an acute yet complex stage.

"This is not a question of ethnicity, religion, democracy or human rights -- it is a huge question of right and wrong about maintaining or destroying national unity, of maintaining or destroying ethnic unity," he added.

Still, Beikeli, an ethnic Uighur himself, said separatists would never win the support of the majority of the people.

"Only a very small number of people in Xinjiang engage in splittist activities and they cannot represent any ethnicity. They are the common enemy of all people," he added.

"Though the several violent terrorist incidents meticulously planned by our enemies had a certain negative effect, they can never damage Xinjiang's overall public interests, and cannot shake the faith of people and officials in marching together toward an affluent society.

"Xinjiang's development prospects are bright."

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Uyghurs face unprecedented persecution in post-Olympic period

A “Life or Death Struggle” in East Turkestan;

Uyghurs face unprecedented persecution in post-Olympic period

For immediate release

September 4, 2008 3:15 PM EST

Contact: Uyghur Human Rights Project +1 (202) 349 1496

A new report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) examines sweeping security measures being targeted at Uyghurs in East Turkestan (also known as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, or XUAR) following a series of violent attacks that took place prior and to the Beijing Olympics. While Uyghurs had experienced widespread repressive measures in the months and years leading up to the Olympics, the arrests, detentions and military and security presence being implemented following these attacks, and in the wake of the Olympic Games, indicate an unprecedented level of repression in the region. While Chinese government authorities claim the security measures are aimed at punishing individuals involved in a series of violent attacks in East Turkestan, the scope of the clampdown represents a broad, far-reaching campaign of intimidation and fear aimed at the Uyghur community.

A “life or death struggle” announced by Xinjiang Party Secretary Wang Lequan, together with a “Strike Hard” campaign issued by Political Consultative Committee head Zhu Hailun, indicate the implementation of a brutal campaign of suppression among the Uyghur population in the weeks and months to come. Wang has presided over a period of political repression and extremely rigid social controls for Uyghurs in East Turkestan, and has spearheaded a drive to blur the distinction between peaceful dissent and terrorism in the region.

UHRP’s report, A “Life or Death Struggle” in East Turkestan, documents a number of recent examples of harsh measures being carried out under the justification of anti-terrorism. These include:

**The arrest of 160 Uyghur children, aged 8 to 14 years old, for participating in “illegal religious activities. The children were brought to Bajiahu Prison in the regional capital of Urumchi, and their parents were asked for 20,000 yuan for the release of each child;

**The arrests of more than 1,000 individuals in post-attack security sweeps in Kucha and Kashgar;

**The confiscation of passports of almost every Uyghur living in the People’s Republic of China, in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

“Some of my worst fears about the Chinese government’s intent to use security as an excuse to detain innocent Uyghurs, including children, are now being realized,” said Uyghur democracy leader Rebiya Kadeer. “While I knew the Chinese government was capable of such a massive crackdown, I hoped I would never see repression on such a broad scale.”

The new crackdown takes place against a backdrop of far-reaching, systematic repression carried out by Beijing over the past seven years, using “terrorism” as a justification. As is common in the Chinese justice system, those arrested in these campaigns frequently suffer from physical abuse and other maltreatment while in government custody. In addition, they are often subject to nontransparent trials and denied access to independent counsel. Convictions are regularly obtained on the basis of forced confessions extracted through torture. Security forces target Uyghurs who express any type of dissent as they “strike hard” against the “three evil forces” of “separatism, terrorism, and extremism.”

The report, A “Life or Death Struggle” in East Turkestan; Uyghurs face unprecedented persecution in post-Olympic period, can be downloaded at:

http://uhrp.org/docs/A-Life-or-Death-Struggle-in-East-Turkestan.pdf

Chinastan

Sep 4th 2008 | KASHGAR AND KUQA
From The Economist print edition

A crackdown in China’s wild West, its Muslim-majority chunk of Central Asia

ON THE roads crossing the dusty fields of cotton and maize around the oasis city of Kashgar, China’s police are on alert. Terrorists, as they call them, have been stepping up their attacks. Officers at checkpoints turn back foreigners venturing towards troublespots. Citizens entering Kashgar line up by the roadside to have their identity cards scanned.

Kashgar’s recent troubles began on August 4th when the police said a lorry was driven into a group of border guards jogging in the heart of the city. Home-made explosives were detonated and the police were attacked with knives. Sixteen policemen were killed, bang in front of a posh hotel. Just ahead of the opening of the Beijing Olympics, the incident unnerved the government. It blamed two “terrorists”, arrested on the spot. That is its usual term for Muslim militants pushing for the independence of Xinjiang, a vast Central Asian expanse of mountain and desert.

Despite an intensified campaign against potential troublemakers, violence has continued. On August 10th, with the games under way in Beijing, 2,800km (1,750 miles) to the east, assailants threw home-made bombs at a police station in the town of Kuqa during the night, killing a guard. Again, they were Uighurs, members of the mostly Muslim, Turkic ethnic group estimated to make up nearly half Xinjiang’s 20m population. They let off several more bombs in Kuqa’s broad, deserted shopping streets, killing a Uighur civilian.

A dangerous neighbourhood

There have since been at least two more attacks in the countryside around Kashgar. On August 12th three guards were killed at a checkpoint in Yamanya township. Two policemen were killed on August 27th in nearby Jiashi county. The official media called the attacks “terrorism”. It is the bloodiest series of such incidents in Xinjiang since the 1990s.

China likes to link Xinjiang’s troubles to the militant Islamism roiling other countries in the region. On August 28th, at a summit in Tajikistan, President Hu Jintao told fellow leaders of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which groups China, Russia and four Central Asian countries, that members should “deepen co-operation” in their fight against the “three evil forces” of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism.

The police in Xinjiang have not pinned the blame for the recent violence on any terrorist group, nor has any claimed responsibility. But the official press has been less restrained. Nanfeng Chuang, a weekly magazine, said unspecified pro-independence groups outside China were “imitating al-Qaeda” and sending members into Xinjiang to organise terrorist attacks.

The group most commonly accused of waging a terror campaign in Xinjiang is the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which in 2001 China described as a “major component” of Osama bin Laden’s network. Earlier this year officials said ETIM had been plotting attacks against the Olympics. A group calling itself the Turkestan Islamic Party (possibly another name for ETIM) released videos claiming responsibility for bus explosions in Shanghai in May and the south-western city of Kunming in July. But the authorities, partly perhaps to prevent fears of a spread of violence into the rest of China, denied the blasts had any terrorist connection.

In fact scant evidence has been made public of any organised terror campaign in Xinjiang or anywhere else in China. The recent attacks involved only the crudest weapons—no machine-guns or other military arms in a part of the world awash with them. In Kuqa a Chinese man shows how an explosive device had fallen to the bottom of the flight of stairs down to his shoe shop. He says the confined space concentrated the blast and enabled it to smash metal and glass shutters.

None of the attacks seems to have been aimed primarily at civilians. One did die in Kuqa, but the decision to attack at 2am does not suggest an intention to cause widespread loss of life among ordinary citizens. The killing of the border guards in central Kashgar occurred at around 8am, also a quiet time, since most people follow an unofficial local time two hours behind the Beijing hour on the clocks.

There is not much evidence either of religious extremism. There have been no reliable reports in Xinjiang of suicide-bombings, a hallmark of Islamist fanaticism. In Kuqa two attackers are said to have blown themselves up, but whether by accident or design is not clear. Eight others were shot dead by police. Li Wei of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing says he believes that Xinjiang’s militants are motivated more by separatism than jihad. In the 1930s and 1940s, a Republic of East Turkestan twice enjoyed a brief independence in parts of Xinjiang. In Kashgar a few older women go out with their heads completely veiled and most women, even many schoolgirls, wear headscarves. But many young people drink alcohol and dress as fashionably as do their Han Chinese counterparts.

So China may be overstating the menace a bit, to rally international support for its crackdown. Travellers in southern Xinjiang say they often see slogans on walls warning people to shun Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an extremist group banned in much of Central Asia that wants to unite Muslims around the world under one caliphate. Others remind citizens that making one’s own way to Mecca is “illegal”. China only allows government-run trips, partly to stop pilgrims mixing with extremists.

To discourage the others

China’s heavy-handed repression angers many Uighurs. In the build-up to the games and particularly since these latest incidents, residents of Kashgar and Kuqa say many suspected of militancy have been arrested. Helmeted police cruise the streets of Kuqa at night in open-topped jeeps. A driver in Kashgar erupts with a tirade against China’s leaders—as “fascists” who do nothing but “bully” Uighurs. Security is likely to remain tight at least until after October 1st, when officials are fearful of attacks over the National Day holiday.

On July 9th near Kashgar, apparently to cow anyone plotting to disrupt the Olympics, the authorities summoned residents to a rally. Officials read out death sentences imposed on three Uighurs for terrorist offences. Notices posted around Kashgar showed the three men’s faces covered by red crosses (indicating they had been executed) and gave details of 57 others sentenced for separatist or terrorist crimes.

The Economist found a relative of one of the 57 near Kashgar. The police soon stopped the interview and detained those involved for over three hours. One officer said he had not been home for more than two weeks because of the alert in the area. A Han Chinese, unusually for a rural policeman, he carries a pistol on his hip.

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