23 August 2006
XINJIANG: Notices show religious activity restrictions

By Hans Petersen, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>, and
Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

Four official notices on display in a mosque in China's north-western Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region starkly reveal the impact on religious freedom of tensions in the region. The documents, seen by Forum 18 News Service and translated here, are displayed in a context of great tension between Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese migrants, and state attempts to control and repress religious activity. Over time, this has radicalised the demands of some Uighur Muslims Forum 18 has spoken to. Islam in Xinjiang, with some exceptions, has been of a moderate variety. Many women go unveiled or just wearing a loose head-scarf, in contrast to the head-to-foot coverage common in nearby Afghanistan. Sufism is popular, as is folk Islam with worship of saints at shrines, which is quite alien to "fundamentalist" Islamic movements such as Wahhabism. China, by its repression of the Islam traditional to the region, is in danger of encouraging radical Islam in the very people it wishes to win over.

20 September 2004
XINJIANG: Religious freedom survey September 2004

By Igor Rotar, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>

In its survey analysis of the religious freedom situation in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of north-western China (previously known as Eastern Turkestan), Forum 18 News Service reports on the pervasive state control over the religious life of native Muslims, who make up about half the local population, and religious minorities, enacted through national-religious committees. These committees, part of the administration of every city, enforce compulsory registration and approve the appointment of all religious leaders, who must come to committee meetings. Forum 18 learnt that at such a meeting in Ghulja in August, officials threatened to dismiss a Patriotic Catholic priest if he preached again against abortion. Children under 18 are officially banned from attending places of worship, though Forum 18 observed that this rule is widely ignored. "We believe that children need to finish their education and develop their personalities before they can make an informed decision as to whether they are believers or atheists," an official of Urumqi's national-religious committee told Forum 18. Contact with fellow-believers abroad remains restricted, leaving smaller religious communities isolated.