With Muslims around the world observing the holy month of Ramadan, Chinese authorities have again launched a crackdown on fasting and religious practices by Islamic minorities. Key points: Fasting and other displays of religious affiliation are viewed as "signs of extremism" Fasting and other displays of religious affiliation are viewed as "signs of extremism" Chinese authorities have long viewed organised religion as a threat to party loyalty Chinese authorities have long viewed organised religion as a threat to party loyalty Mass surveillance and detentions have intensified over the past three years in Xinjiang The restrictions are particularly enforced in the Muslim-majority Western province of Xinjiang, where Chinese authorities frequently stay at the homes of Muslim families to suppress religious activities, according to the Human Rights Watch and activists. During Ramadan, Muslims traditionally fast from dawn to dusk and refrain from smoking and other vices. Amnesty International said in a report released late last week Chinese authorities view Ramadan fasting — along with other displays of religious affiliation including beards, headscarves, regular prayers and avoidance of alcohol — as a "sign of extremism". "Any of these can land you in one of Xinjiang's internment camps, which the government calls 'transformation-through-education centres'", the report said. Chinese authorities have long viewed organised religion as a threat to party loyalty, keeping a tight rein on all religious groups, but Muslim minorities in Xinjiang region have borne the brunt of far more aggressive crackdowns. While restrictions on Ramadan fasting in schools and government offices have existed for decades, mass surveillance and detentions have intensified over the past three years in an effort to stop families from adhering to Muslim traditions even within their own homes, Alip Erkin, a Uyghur media activist for the Uyghur Bulletin, said. Mr Erkin said people now feared they could be sent to internment camps "if they engaged in any religious activities or expressed their religious identities or traditional cultures". The ABC approached China's National Religious Affairs Administration for comment, but it did not respond by the time of publication. But in a press conference on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang maintained that China administers religious affairs "according to law". "We are resolute in rejecting and fighting religious extremism," he said when questioned about the situation in Xinjiang. "Believers' normal religious activities are guaranteed in accordance with law and their customs respected." Forced group lunches and lectures on socialist values Mr Erkin said the threat of arrests had created a climate of fear in which people "self censor" religious activity. ( AP: Ng Han Guan, File Mr Erkin, who now lives in Australia, said throughout his schooling, fasting and praying during Ramadan were discouraged. "In 2014 the ban [crackdown] intensified," he said. "They began gathering people in their workplaces and schools and served them lunch to make sure they do not fast." The ABC has found posts and notices on various government websites dating from 2014 and 2015 which ban fasting and Ramadan traditions, and warn that any restaurant which closes during Ramadan risks losing its licence. Those government websites do not appear to have more recent posts forbidding fasting and prayers, but activists say an unofficial ban for students and government officials remains in place throughout China. The crackdown on religious freedom at home has also intensified over the past few years. While there were strict limitations within government institutes throughout China during 2014 and 2015, Mr Erkin said families were still afforded religious freedom at home. "My father, who was a businessman and had no connection to the Government, was able to fast at home without restriction," Mr Erkin said. But by May 2017 all that changed, he said, and his father — who was a devout Muslim — was detained. In the same year, reports of mass internment began to emerge and surveillance intensified. The United Nations estimates up to 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim groups have been detained in re-education camps in the Xinjiang province since 2017. Cameras and audio recorders now line every street and monitor the doorways of many households. Surveillance cameras line the streets of Urumqi in Xinjiang region. ( ABC News: Tracey Shelton Government officials monitor families through 'home stays' Government officials have also began making regular "home stays" in Xinjiang during which "families are required to provide officials with information about their lives and political views, and are subjected to political indoctrination", according to a Human Rights Watch report from May last year. Aileen, 37, a Hui Muslim from the north-western Gansu province, said officials regularly searched homes and stayed with families in Xinjiang for about a week "to ensure there is no religious practice within the household". If items such as prayer mats or religious books were found, someone was usually detained, said Aileen who asked to only be known by her first name to protect family members still living in China. "Most people don't keep Korans in their houses anymore," she said. The perimeter fence of a detention camp, officially known as a vocational skills education centre, in Xinjiang. ( Reuters: Thomas Peter In addition to "home stays", local officials regularly dropped in on families unannounced to check they were not fasting or praying, Mr Erkin said. Lectures on "socialist core values" were also frequently held to "greet Ramadan", according to an article from Chinese state media Global Times published last year. Mr Erkin described one such lecture in which a Government official instructed people not to use Muslim greetings such as salam mulakum, which means peace be upon you. The main target of surveillance and detentions has been ethnic Uyghurs, one of several Muslim minorities living in China who have struggled for independence from China in the past. While there is surveillance and some restrictions on religious practices in other regions of China, Aileen, who is now an Australian resident, said her family in Gansu were still allowed to fast and pray. But in Xinjiang province, all Muslims have been subjected to detentions and bans on religious practices. 'Fast from China' campaign retaliation to ban In Xinjiang province, Muslims have been subjected to detentions and bans on religious practices.<doc-sep>Insight With mosques in the region being periodically demolished and fasting mostly banned, minorities in East Turkistan are bearing the brunt of institutionalised xenophobia. This file photo taken on June 26, 2017 shows Muslim men arriving at the Id Kah Mosque for the morning prayer on Eid al-Fitr in the old town of Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Chinese authorities are using a mobile app designed for mass surveillance to profile, investigate and detain Muslims in East Turkistan by labelling "completely lawful" behaviour. (AFP) While millions around the world go about fasting as they usually do every year, around 10 million Uighurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, which is also known as East Turkistan, are facing a brutal crackdown that is making fasting almost impossible. China has been long criticised for its crackdown on the Turkic Muslims, who make up almost half of the population of East Turkistan, but its aggressive policies have intensified in recent years and cultural, religious and economic discrimination has become widespread in the area. When you’re banned from (not) eating The observance of Ramadan has reportedly been banned this year in East Turkistan, as was the case in previous years. The 2015 ban included civil servants, students and teachers. The Chinese ambassador to Pakistan alleged that Muslims were free to fast in East Turkistan when Ramadan commenced this year, but later confirmed via Twitter that the ban was still, in fact, in place. “The restrictions (only apply to) Communist party members, who are atheist, government officials and students (in compulsory education),” he wrote. Needless to say, his tweet was condemned by activists and journalists. “Thank you to the Chinese embassy in Islamabad for stating directly that this large swathe of the Muslim population in Xinjiang, including those undergoing ‘compulsory education’ and ‘hard learning’, is not permitted to fast during Ramadan,” tweeted Megha Rajagopalan, a journalist. Uighurs say the ban is more widespread than officials claim, with some saying they have been asked to keep an eye out for anyone fasting or face collective punishment, according to World Uighur Congress spokesperson, Dilxat Raxid. Raxid also says Uighurs, as well as local and pro-Beijing officials, are closely monitored and pressured into pledging full loyalty to the Communist party. When you can’t show any sign of being Muslim In China, the ruling communist party considers religious displays a sign of “extremism”, even when practiced in the private sphere. That not only includes obvious practices, such as growing a beard, wearing a headcover or praying, but also extends to things people may not do out of religious conviction, such as abstaining from eating during Ramadan or refraining from drinking alcohol. In Ramadan, all Uighur students are monitored by the school management and asked to prove that they’re not fasting. If they dare to fast, they are sent to detention centres that Chinese officials call “re-education camps” for “assimilation”, or “hard learning”. In fact, an estimated 1 million to 2 million Muslims, mainly Uighurs, are being held in mass concentration camps in China today. Almost every Uighur family will have at least one of its members taken into the camps at one point. Former detainees have described being tortured and forced into falsely confessing that they are extremists. While China brands the camps “vocational centres'' in which Muslims are “taught” a profession, reports say detainees live in crowded cells and are subjected to a daily regimen of party indoctrination, which led to some suicides. Former detainees also say they were forced to eat port and drink alcohol. Watched and violated at every turn What Chinese officials call a “health check” is actually one of the strongest tools of surveillance. All Muslims in East Turkistan are asked to provide blood samples and biometric data, including DNA, fingerprints, voice recordings and face scans. It is very common for Uighurs to be taken into the detention camps after these health checks. The surveillance also extends to relatives, activists say. Rushan Abbas, a human rights activist for the Uighurs, told NPR that her sister and aunt disappeared the same day in which she spoke about conditions at the camps at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC last year. She says they were likely sent to the camps. Uighurs are requested to relinquish their smartphones at checkpoints around the East Turkistan region and many have been arrested for supposedly committing offences on their phones. More mosques being razed by the day New research suggests that China has systematically destroyed Islamic sites in the region between 2016 and 2018. The reports, published on www.bellingcat.com and The Guardian, reported that 31 mosques and two major shrines were either completely or partially destroyed after activists brought the destruction to their attention. The Imam Asim shrine, one of the largest in the region, for instance, has only its tomb left. It is impossible for journalists or researchers to conduct a full-scale investigation within the country, but researchers and activists believe that the number of bulldozed religious sites could be thousands more than recorded. While mosques are rapidly being destroyed in the region, many Muslims say they fear going to the ones that are left for fear of persecution. Source: TRT World<doc-sep>ISLAMABAD: There are no restrictions on the Muslims in Xinjiang region from fasting during the month of Ramadan, Chinese diplomat clarified media reports Monday. Some media reports suggested that the Communist Party has placed restriction on Chinese Muslims in the autonomous region from observing religious practices. Responding to these, DCM, Chinese Embassy in Islamabad, Zhao Lijian stated that Muslims are free to fast in Xinjiang. He tweeted: “I would like to clarify Muslims are free to fast in Xinjiang. Restrictions are with Communist party members, who are atheists; government officials, who shall discharge their duties; students who are with compulsory education & hard learning tasks.”<doc-sep>Uighurs and their supporters march to the United Nations to protest in New York, on March 15, 2018. Members of the Uighur Muslim ethnic group held demonstrations in cities around the world to protest a sweeping Chinese surveillance and security campaign that has sent thousands of their people into detention and political indoctrination centers. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig) (RNS) — This Ramadan, human rights groups and Muslim organizations are urging U.S. Muslims to boycott products made in China, where authorities have for years cracked down on Muslims fasting. “People say, ‘Oh, I can’t boycott China, everything is made in China,’” said Hena Zuberi, director of outreach for the nonprofit Justice for All, who helped found the Fast From China campaign this month. “Well, we have the spiritual wherewithal to refrain from eating and drinking during the day in Ramadan. This is a time to control your nafs (self).” Launched April 19 by the Sound Vision Foundation’s Save Uighur project, the Fast From China initiative aims to get Muslims to rethink their everyday purchasing decisions and replace items bearing a “Made in China” label with products made in other countries. By setting the stage for more long-term campaigns, Zuberi said, they hope to change both Muslim consumers’ minds and American businesses’ relationship with Chinese manufacturing. “It’s important for Americans to realize that they benefit from the open market, but they’re not opening their minds towards freedom of religion, human rights and due process of law,” said Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid, head of the Sound Vision Foundation. “Ramadan is a time when people develop a higher level of connection and consciousness. Being hungry reminds us of the bigger picture of humanity.” As the campaign launched, Al-Furqaan Foundation, a Chicago nonprofit that is one of the largest Western publishers of the Quran, publicly pledged to stop using Chinese facilities to print its products. This upcoming Ramadan, let's not just fast from food and water, but also products made in China. This will be a big step forward in challenging China's genocide of Uyghurs and other Turkic people. #FastFromChina pic.twitter.com/MzCVVvwo9p — Aydin Anwar (@aydinanwar_) April 26, 2019 For at least three years, the Chinese government has forced members of the Uighur Muslim minority in the Xinjiang province to skip the obligatory fasting and other religious rituals that mark Islam’s holy month. Reports from Xianjang suggest authorities have forbidden restaurants from closing during the month and banned workers, students and women from fasting and praying. Officials often send out invitations to events with food and drink, and those who do not attend and eat are regarded with suspicion. In the indoctrination camps, other reports say, detainees have been forced to eat pork and drink alcohol, considered haram, or forbidden, by Muslims. “When we speak to Uighurs here they tell us they feel Muslims around the world have abandoned them,” Zuberi said. “People are afraid to speak up because of the economic consequences.” While leaders of Muslim-majority nations have largely been silent on the Uighur persecution, the Fast From China campaign has caught on with U.S. Muslims. Zuberi compared it to the way that boycotting Israel-made products to protest the treatment of Palestinian people has become mainstream among many U.S. Muslim consumers. “I won’t purchase something that’s made in Israel because inside, I feel sickened to my stomach,” Zuberi said. “It’s embedded in my mind. We want to put it into Muslims’ consciousness that buying products made in China is contributing to the oppression of our brothers and sisters who have not been able to fast for years, and especially now many are in concentration camps where they’re being force-fed haram food.” Zuberi added that she will not buy Ramadan decorations and some furniture for her new home until she finds a replacement made in a country other than China. The Fast From China campaign is an extension of a budding movement in Muslim communities to divest from China. This month, during Ramadan, a coalition of Muslim and human rights groups will launch the I Boycott China campaign. Last summer, Hijabican, an Islamic clothing store based in Charlotte, N.C., pledged to stop manufacturing its products in China. “We want to support women and Muslim owned businesses especially and support fair labor practices,” Hijabican’s founder, Kawthar Suleiman, wrote on the company’s website. “We could not in good conscience continue (manufacturing in China) after … learning more about the oppression of the Uyghurs under the Chinese government.” Earlier this year, a group of more than 130 American Muslim leaders and scholars signed an open letter condemning the Chinese government’s continued persecution of Uighurs and urged U.S. consumers to boycott imports produced by the detainees’ forced labor. The list of signers included prominent Muslim leaders such as Imam Omar Suleiman of the Yaqeen Institute in Texas, Imam Yasir Qadhi of Islamic Seminary of America and Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.<doc-sep>
Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang province are facing tight restrictions and other tribulations at the hands of communist officials intent on erasing their religious and ethnic identity by destroying their worshipping sites and forcing them into “concentration camps” as others around the world mark the holy month of Ramadan. Turkey is the only prominent Muslim nation to speak against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) crackdown on the mainly Uighur (or Uyghur) Muslims that make up the majority of residents in Xinjiang, the largest province in the country. On Monday, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported: As Muslims worldwide began a month of abstaining from food or drink from dawn until sunset for Ramadan Monday, Uyghurs chafed under tough Chinese controls over observations of the annual Muslim holy month in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). … [Communist] authorities in Xinjiang have typically forced restaurants to stay open and restricted access to mosques during Ramadan to discourage traditional observation of the holy month, and in recent years authorities’ have tried to ban fasting among Uyghurs, drawing widespread criticism from rights groups. The RFA report came on the same day that an investigation by the Guardian shed light on China’s evil endeavor to raze the mosques of Xinjiang. Citing satellite imagery of the locations of dozens of mosques and shrines, the Guardian reported on Monday: Out of 91 sites analyzed, 31 mosques and two major shrines, including the Imam Asim complex and another site, suffered significant structural damage between 2016 and 2018. Of those, 15 mosques and both shrines appear to have been completely or almost completely razed. The rest of the damaged mosques had gatehouses, domes, and minarets removed. A further nine locations identified by former Xinjiang residents as mosques, but where buildings did not have obvious indicators of being a mosque such as minarets or domes, also appeared to have been destroyed. That means China has partly or wholly demolished more than two dozen Islamic religious sites since 2016 alone. Beijing intensified its crackdown on Muslims in 2017. the U.S. Department of State acknowledged. Last Friday, Randall Schriver, the assistant U.S. secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs, indicated to reporters that the number of Muslim detainees at the “concentration camps” may have more than tripled from at least 800,000 at the end of 2018 to “likely closer to 3 million” now. On Monday, Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, described the 3 million figure as “simply not true.” China has repeatedly denied assertions by the U.S. and the United Nations that it has forced Muslim minorities into re-education or mind-transformation centers where they face systemic torture, disappearances, executions, and arbitrary detentions in the name of communist indoctrination. After initially denying the overall existence of the facilities, Beijing claimed that the“concentration camps” – estimated to number up to 1,200 – are legal “vocational” centers used to combat the “three evils” of religious extremism, ethnic separatism, and violent terrorism, Ilshat Hassan, president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association, told RFA: The entire Muslim world has started fasting and praying. But unfortunately, the Uyghur Muslims under China’s draconian rule can neither fast nor pray during this Ramadan. It is not just Uyghurs’ Islamic faith that is under Chinese attack but also their very existence as a unique indigenous people. The international community needs to take action for China locking up millions of Uyghurs in concentration camps. And the Muslim world, especially OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation], should hold China accountable for its anti-Islamic policy and crimes against humanity. OIC is an international organization consisting of 57 member states, including 53 Muslim-majority countries. Pakistan, a member of the international body, has defended the actions against Muslims by its ally China. OIC member Turkey, however, has blasted China over the mistreatment of Muslims. Uighurs share cultural and linguistic similarities with other Turkic ethnic groups. Dolkun Isa, president of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, told RFA: While the Muslims around the world are enjoying their religious freedom and peacefully celebrating Ramadan, the Uyghur Muslims of East Turkestan have been denied by China their legitimate right to celebrate, pray and fast. This is the third consecutive year that Uyghur people, who accepted Islam as a state religion more than a thousand year ago, have not been able to celebrate Ramadan because of Chinese government’s anti-Islamic and anti-Uyghur policies. He echoed Hassan’s calls for international pressure on China to halt its Muslim crackdown.