China intensifies religious oppression against Muslim Uyghurs

The Society for Threatened Peoples in Göttingen criticizes the fact that China has intensified the religious oppression against Muslim Uyghurs shortly before the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan (July 9). According to the human rights organization, the authorities are trying to keep young people from participating in the fasting by raiding schools, by inspecting or confiscating mobile phones and by applying massive pressure on the parents. Also, billboards and posters announce a warning that veiled women should not be served at public facilities or at gas stations. "China is guilty of serious violations of the freedom of religion, if the Muslim Uyghurs are not allowed to practice their religious celebrations or follow their religious dress codes," said the STP's Asia-consultant, Ulrich Delius.

On Tuesday, the official paper "China Legal Daily" reported on its website that – during the past few days – 19 Uyghurs were sentenced to prison terms of up to six years for religious reasons. A member of the Muslim minority was sentenced to prison for downloading a religious text from a non-official website. Another was accused of "religious extremism" because he had distributed materials about human rights violations against Uyghurs that had been published abroad. Except for one of them, all the convicts are from the south of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, which the Uyghurs traditionally call East Turkestan. Eight of them live in the city of Kashgar, where there had been a lot of protests against the Chinese reign. During the last few years, the Chinese authorities had torn down 85 percent of the historic center of the historically and culturally important former caravan city – against the will of the local people.

There are twelve million Uyghur people living in north-western China. For years, they have been complaining about systematical restrictions of their freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of expression and of their freedom of assembly. Mosques and Islamic schools are closed arbitrarily and imams have to undergo regular procedures of "brainwashing" by citizenship education. The security forces treat bearded men as potential "terrorists" and they are continuously harassed. Anyone who spreads information on human rights violations against the Uyghurs is also treated as a "terrorist" and will risk long prison sentences.