CAIRO – Deploring increasing restrictions on practicing Islam in
China's northwestern district of Xinjiang, a leading American Muslim
group has sent a letter to the Chinese President urging him to end all
state-sanctioned denial of religious freedoms targeting Muslims.
"The
ability of Muslims in Xinjiang to freely practice their faith is
allegedly being obstructed by local authorities who routinely attempt to
ban fasting during Ramadan under a state campaign to suppress Islamic
religious practices and local Muslim traditions," Nihad Awad, National
Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR),
wrote in a letter to President Xi Jinping.
"These acts of state religious suppression also reportedly include
harassing Muslim men who grow beards and women who wear Islamic attire.
"It is also reported that Muslims under the age of 18 are prohibited
from practicing their religion and that authorities impose heavy fines
on families whose children study the Quran, Islam's revealed text, or
fast during Ramadan."
Every year, Chinese authorities have
repeatedly imposed restrictions on Uighur Muslim in the northwestern
region of Xinjiang every Ramadan.
In Ramadan, adult Muslims, save the sick and those traveling, abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex between dawn and sunset.
Earlier in December, China banned the wearing of Islamic veiled robes in public in Urumqi, the capital of the province of Xinjiang.
The
law in the predominantly Muslim region came as Beijing intensified its
so-called campaign against “religious extremism” that it blames for
recent violence.
"The Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to those who
practice Islam. As a signatory to the United Nations Charter, the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United
Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination, the People's Republic of China is responsible for
ensuring that Muslims in Xinjiang and across greater China are entitled
to equal protection under the law against any state discrimination and
against any incitement to discrimination," the letter said.
"The
American Muslim community and CAIR respectfully urge the People's
Republic of China to uphold its own laws and international conventions
by removing all barriers to religious freedom for the Muslims in
Xinjiang, for Muslims throughout China and for the rights of all other
people of faith in your nation."
CAIR also requested a meeting
between the Chinese ambassador in Washington, D.C., and representatives
of the American Muslim community and other concerned parties to discuss
the issue of religious freedom.
Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million in the northwestern Xinjiang region.
Xinjiang,
which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but
continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese
authorities.
Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious
repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in the name of counter
terrorism.
Earlier in 2014, Xinjiang banned the practicing of
religion in government buildings, as well as wearing clothes or logos
associated with religious extremism.
Last May, Muslim shops and restaurants in a Chinese village in northwestern Xinjiang have been ordered to sell cigarettes and alcohol or face closure.
By. on islam staff
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