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China orders Muslim shopkeepers to sell alcohol, cigarettes, to “weaken” Islam
By Simon Denyer – Chinese
authorities have ordered Muslim shopkeepers and restaurant owners in a
village in its troubled Xinjiang region to sell alcohol and cigarettes,
and promote them in “eye-catching displays,” in an attempt to undermine
Islam’s hold on local residents, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported. Establishments that failed to comply were threatened with closure and their owners with prosecution.
Facing widespread discontent over its
repressive rule in the mainly Muslim province of Xinjiang, and mounting
violence in the past two years, China has launched a series of “strike
hard” campaigns to weaken the hold of Islam in the western region.
Government employees and children have been barred from attending
mosques or observing the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. In many
places, women have been barred from wearing face-covering veils, and men
discouraged from growing long beards.
In the village of Aktash in southern
Xinjiang, Communist Party official Adil Sulayman, told RFA that many
local shopkeepers had stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes from 2012
“because they fear public scorn,” while many locals had decided to
abstain from drinking and smoking.
The Koran calls the use of “intoxicants” sinful, while some Muslim religious leaders have also forbidden smoking.
Sulayman said authorities in Xinjiang
viewed ethnic Uighurs who did not smoke as adhering to “a form of
religious extremism,” and had issued the order to counter growing
religious sentiment that he said was “affecting stability.”
“We have a campaign to weaken religion here, and this is part of that campaign,” he told the Washington-based news service.
The notice, obtained by RFA and also
posted on Twitter, ordered all restaurants and supermarkets in Aktash to
sell five different brands of alcohol and cigarettes and display them
prominently. “Anybody who neglects this notice and fails to act will see
their shops sealed off, their businesses suspended, and legal action
pursued against them,” the notice said.
Radio Free Asia, which provides some of
the only coverage of events in Xinjiang to escape strict Chinese
government controls, said Hotan prefecture, where Aktash is located, had
become “a hotbed of violent stabbing and shooting incidents between
ethnic Uighurs and Chinese security forces.”
China says Uighur militant groups based
abroad are using the Internet to inspire local Muslims to take up
violent jihad against the state. Critics says China’s long repression of
Uighur rights and nationalist sentiment has pushed people towards Islam
as the only permitted assertion of their community’s identity, and
pushed a minority towards a violent form of Islam. Clumsy attempts to
promote alcohol or forbid beards and veils may prove counterproductive,
they warn.
Sulayman said around 60 shops and
restaurants in the area had complied with the government order, and
there were no reports of protests. But in an unrelated incident in
neighboring Qinghai province on Friday, an angry crowd of Muslims
smashed windows of a supposedly halal store in Xining city, after pork
sausages and ham were found in a delivery van, according to the local government and photographs on social media.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/05/china-orders-muslim-shopkeepers-to-sell-alcohol-cigarettes-to-weaken-islam/
A shift in power
By Taha Meli Arvas – The
most important story in finance and global politics of the decade may
have taken place two weeks ago. Global finance, already on a steady
course in shifting eastward, took a large leap on April 19. By
implementing a plan, several years in the making, one nation crept
closer to joining the only current occupant at the superpowers’ table,
the United States.Recently having become
the world’s largest consumer of energy, China took steps to alleviate
its difficulty in getting its energy and may have simultaneously changed
the way global politics work.Despite being the third largest country on
earth, China is landlocked on its northern, western, and southern
borders.
This forces China to use its eastern
border for most of its transport needs. This means the vast majority of
the crude that the Chinese use travels almost 10,000 miles. China wants
an alternative. Not only because it would save several billion dollars a
year in transportation costs by knocking off 7,000 miles from this
journey, but primarily because it would no longer need to risk its
energy lifeline by having it travel through open seas and through
sovereign transport corridors. Enter the China Pakistan Economic
Corridor.
Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to Pakistan marking the first
state visit by that country’s president to Pakistan. While in Pakistan,
Xi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif signed an agreement
launching the Pakistan China Economic Corridor (both variations of the
corridor’s names are used.) The agreement calls for China to invest over
$45 billion in Pakistan in the coming years with the first $26 billion
being invested almost immediately. Funds will be invested mainly in
developing Pakistan’s transport infrastructure and its perpetually
starved power grid.Pakistan and China share a relatively small border, one that is both neither fully uncontested nor well developed. The northern Pakistani/far-western Chinese border is an unlikely location for major economic development but that is exactly what is happening. The Pakistanis have agreed to allow the Chinese to use build, maintain and operate ports in southern Pakistan. Initially Middle Eastern crude will enter Pakistan at the Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan where it will then be transported by road and rail north to the Chinese border. In the future, a trans-Persian-Pakistani pipeline is planned for cheaper and faster transport of Middle Eastern oil to China’s interior.
Most of China’s largest cities largely sit in the east and south. Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has worked hard in developing a high-speed rail network making the development of the interior more feasible. In the west, the minority Turkic Uighur population makes up the majority of the inhabitants of the Xinjiang province. Numbering over 10 million, the Uighur’s live in what is commonly called “East Turkistan.” Developing these areas, those that border Pakistan, may both bring jobs and investment to those areas which were previously ignored by Beijing. Doing so would be a win-win for China.
The major issue here is not that two countries have signed an economic cooperation agreement, but that American ally Pakistan has entered into a multi-decade-long, multi-billion dollar agreement with China, potentially replacing the U.S. as its “most favored nation.” China has recently been flexing its political and economic muscle with several spats over uninhabited islands claimed by both China and Japan. This has angered the Japanese and been met with disapproval by the United States. China has also invested billions in South America and more notably Africa. These investments while worrisome have not been cause for alarm by the United States, which has relatively little economic interest in these continents. However, Pakistan and Afghanistan are countries in which the United States has invested hundreds of billions of dollars. Allowing the Chinese to enter into these spheres of American influence may be the beginning of a new era in this part of the world.
The Chinese are, with the Japanese, the largest holders of American debt globally. They each hold nearly $1 trillion of American debt in their central banks. The world is watching China’s moves and is asking itself if the United States will allow China to use its economic might in historically American spheres of influence. In the next few years, this question will be answered and the world will either enter into a new era of a U.S.-Chinese oligopoly or the United States will answer with its own renewed efforts at holding on to these spheres.
http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/taha-meli-arvas/2015/05/05/a-shift-in-power
In China, riot breaks out after pork spotted in Halal bakery van
ucanews.com reporter, Beijing
China
May 4, 2015
A riot at a Halal bakery accused of selling pork products led authorities in the western Chinese city of Xining to promise a full investigation on Sunday in a bid to calm tensions.
A large crowd of angry Muslims gathered around the Halal chain store and smashed windows after pork sausages and ham were discovered in a delivery van following morning prayers on Friday.
Authorities in multi-ethnic Xining issued a series of statements on Saturday and Sunday urging calm and announcing the suspension of the bakery’s manufacturing facility amid a probe into the riot.
“Investigation takes time, and will be done carefully, please give us some time so we can give you a satisfactory response,” the city government said Sunday.
It was forced to temporarily close the city’s official social media account Sunday after being swamped with demands that the bakery chain A Li Cake be punished.
The imam of Xining’s Dongguan Grand Mosque, Ma Changqing, said on Saturday the incident had hurt local Muslims and issued a list of demanded punishments.
But the imam’s comments prompted a barrage of criticism on social media, as many complained a religious figure should not be able to influence the law in a secular state.
Qinghai’s provincial capital Xining, a city with a sizeable Hui Muslim and Tibetan population, has remained mostly calm as religious and ethnic violence has engulfed western China in recent years, particularly neighboring Xinjiang.
Authorities in March accused minority Muslim Uyghur extremists of a campaign taking Halal too far as tensions have risen.
“In fact, the pan-halal trend became so strong in [the] past two years that people even refused to drive Chevrolet cars because its logo is shaped like a cross,” Abulet Asan, an official in Xinjiang’s Religious Affairs Bureau, told the state-run China Daily.
But with still no nationwide Halal standard and growing tensions between majority Han and minority Muslims, Uyghur groups maintain their concerns are valid.
“This is largely for health reasons due to the rise of unhealthy, un-halal, and even poisonous foods made by irresponsible Chinese companies,” Alim Seytoff, executive director of the US-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told ucanew.com. “The recent pro-halal trend came as a result of Chinese food producers labeling a lot of non-halal food as halal.”
China
May 4, 2015
A riot at a Halal bakery accused of selling pork products led authorities in the western Chinese city of Xining to promise a full investigation on Sunday in a bid to calm tensions.
A large crowd of angry Muslims gathered around the Halal chain store and smashed windows after pork sausages and ham were discovered in a delivery van following morning prayers on Friday.
Authorities in multi-ethnic Xining issued a series of statements on Saturday and Sunday urging calm and announcing the suspension of the bakery’s manufacturing facility amid a probe into the riot.
“Investigation takes time, and will be done carefully, please give us some time so we can give you a satisfactory response,” the city government said Sunday.
It was forced to temporarily close the city’s official social media account Sunday after being swamped with demands that the bakery chain A Li Cake be punished.
The imam of Xining’s Dongguan Grand Mosque, Ma Changqing, said on Saturday the incident had hurt local Muslims and issued a list of demanded punishments.
But the imam’s comments prompted a barrage of criticism on social media, as many complained a religious figure should not be able to influence the law in a secular state.
Qinghai’s provincial capital Xining, a city with a sizeable Hui Muslim and Tibetan population, has remained mostly calm as religious and ethnic violence has engulfed western China in recent years, particularly neighboring Xinjiang.
Authorities in March accused minority Muslim Uyghur extremists of a campaign taking Halal too far as tensions have risen.
“In fact, the pan-halal trend became so strong in [the] past two years that people even refused to drive Chevrolet cars because its logo is shaped like a cross,” Abulet Asan, an official in Xinjiang’s Religious Affairs Bureau, told the state-run China Daily.
But with still no nationwide Halal standard and growing tensions between majority Han and minority Muslims, Uyghur groups maintain their concerns are valid.
“This is largely for health reasons due to the rise of unhealthy, un-halal, and even poisonous foods made by irresponsible Chinese companies,” Alim Seytoff, executive director of the US-based Uyghur Human Rights Project, told ucanew.com. “The recent pro-halal trend came as a result of Chinese food producers labeling a lot of non-halal food as halal.”
Categories:
China: Release Journalists, Protect Press Freedom
May 1, 2015 • 1:54 am
(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders – May 1, 2015) – On the eve of 2015’s World Press Freedom Day, CHRD calls on the Chinese government to release the dozens of journalists, bloggers, and citizen journalists imprisoned in China, including the recently imprisoned 71-year old journalist Gao Yu (高瑜). On April 17, a Beijing court sentenced Gao to seven years in prison for “illegally disseminating state secrets overseas” for allegedly sending a Chinese Communist Party directive to a US-based website. By the end of 2014, more journalists were in prison in China than in any other country, according to press freedom NGOs.
In a career spanning four decades, Gao has faced the government’s wrath for exposing corruption and misconduct in the top ranks of the CCP. She spent 15 months in detention for vocally supporting the pro-democracy movement in 1989, and in 1993 she was sent to prison for six years, also based on a “state secrets” charge, for her reporting that appeared in Hong Kong-based publications. Ever since, the government has barred her from publishing inside the country. In 1997, she was the first recipient of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, honored for her unwavering fight for press independence despite constant danger. Eighteen years later and in poor health, she is serving another prison term for championing press freedom in China.
“President Xi Jinping has drastically tightened the government’s grip on media,” said Renee Xia, CHRD’s international director. “But Xi’s anti-graft campaign is bound to fail if journalists who dare to report on the inner workings of the government are put in prison and online commentators are criminalized.”
A free press is an essential watchdog to hold government officials accountable. But China’s strict censorship and vaguely defined laws on “state secrets” and sharing information online have stifled both traditional media as well as bloggers and citizen journalists. One disturbing example of government overreach is the adoption of regulations in 2014 that bar media workers from obtaining and disseminating information deemed a “state secret.”
Since Xi Jinping came to power, many Chinese journalists have been detained or imprisoned in retaliation for exposing corruption and challenging government policies. In a secret trial last year, Hunan authorities sentenced Chen Yongzhou (陈永州), who was working for Guangdong-based newspaper New Express, to 22 months in prison for “fabricating and spreading falsehoods to damage the business reputation of others” after he exposed financial fraud at a Changsha construction firm. His colleague Liu Hu (刘虎) spent 346 days in detention on suspicion of “libel” for writing about corruption by a CCP official.
Ethnic minority journalists or online commentators who wrote about issues concerning China’s restive western regions have always faced harsh prison sentences under intense state censorship. Merely commenting on policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or Tibet Autonomous Region has led to lengthy imprisonment on trumped-up political charges, including “separatism.” In a well-known recent case, Ilham Tohti (伊力哈木Ÿ●土赫提), an ethnic Uyghur professor and founder of the online news site Uighurbiz.net, was sentenced to life in prison in September 2014. A colleague of his at Uighurbiz.net and former state media journalist, Hailaite Niyazi (海莱特Ÿ●尼亚孜), has been serving a 15-year punishment since 2010 for giving an interview about violent unrest that broke out in Urumqi in July 2009. The government shut down the website, greatly reducing the amount of non-government information available to observers of Xinjiang and the Uyghur people.
There have been reports that, inside Chinese prisons, journalists have been subjected to torture, hard labor, or other forms of mistreatment. Qi Chonghuai (齐崇淮), a one-time bureau chief with the Fazhi Morning Post, has described being beaten unconscious in a Shandong prison and left believing he would die. Imprisoned in 2008, Qi is serving a 12-year sentence after writing about luxury government buildings. Wang Hanfei (王寒非), the former editor of the Hong Kong-based journal “China Special Report,” was beaten in a Hunan prison and forced to make toy products by hand in 15-hour shifts every day for months. Blogger and online commentator Dong Rubin (董如彬), also known as Bian Min (边民), has said that he was interrogated for 70 to 80 days straight while chained to a chair, likely to force him to confess. Authorities have conducted no known investigations into these allegations, and no one has been held accountable.
There have also been reports of journalists languishing in long pre-trial detention while being stripped of other due process rights. Freelance journalist Jiang Lijun (姜力均) and news assistant Zhang Miao (张淼) have been held for nearly a year without coming before a judge. Police seized them in 2014 around the 25th anniversary of June Fourth and the Hong Kong democracy protests, respectively. Jiang, who is being held in Liaoning for allegedly circulating information online, previously served four years in prison after Yahoo! gave details of his account to Chinese authorities. Beijing police arrested Zhang after she went to Hong Kong to report on the demonstrations this past fall.
CHRD calls on Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all journalists, bloggers, and citizen journalists from prison and detention. Allegations of torture of journalists should be immediately and independently investigated, and state compensation should be properly provided. The Xi Jinping leadership should take the critical step toward cleaning up corruption in government—by ending state control of the media, lifting censorship, and respecting press freedom.
Media Contacts:
Renee Xia, International Director (Mandarin, English), +1 240 374 8937, reneexia@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @ReneeXiaCHRD
Victor Clemens, Research Coordinator (English), +1 209 643 0539, victorclemens@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @VictorClemens
Frances Eve, Researcher (English), +852 6695 4083, franceseve@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @FrancesEveCHRD
Wendy Lin, Hong Kong Coordinator (Mandarin, Cantonese, English), +852 6932 1274, wendylin@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @WendyLinCHRD
(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders – May 1, 2015) – On the eve of 2015’s World Press Freedom Day, CHRD calls on the Chinese government to release the dozens of journalists, bloggers, and citizen journalists imprisoned in China, including the recently imprisoned 71-year old journalist Gao Yu (高瑜). On April 17, a Beijing court sentenced Gao to seven years in prison for “illegally disseminating state secrets overseas” for allegedly sending a Chinese Communist Party directive to a US-based website. By the end of 2014, more journalists were in prison in China than in any other country, according to press freedom NGOs.
In a career spanning four decades, Gao has faced the government’s wrath for exposing corruption and misconduct in the top ranks of the CCP. She spent 15 months in detention for vocally supporting the pro-democracy movement in 1989, and in 1993 she was sent to prison for six years, also based on a “state secrets” charge, for her reporting that appeared in Hong Kong-based publications. Ever since, the government has barred her from publishing inside the country. In 1997, she was the first recipient of the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, honored for her unwavering fight for press independence despite constant danger. Eighteen years later and in poor health, she is serving another prison term for championing press freedom in China.
“President Xi Jinping has drastically tightened the government’s grip on media,” said Renee Xia, CHRD’s international director. “But Xi’s anti-graft campaign is bound to fail if journalists who dare to report on the inner workings of the government are put in prison and online commentators are criminalized.”
A free press is an essential watchdog to hold government officials accountable. But China’s strict censorship and vaguely defined laws on “state secrets” and sharing information online have stifled both traditional media as well as bloggers and citizen journalists. One disturbing example of government overreach is the adoption of regulations in 2014 that bar media workers from obtaining and disseminating information deemed a “state secret.”
Since Xi Jinping came to power, many Chinese journalists have been detained or imprisoned in retaliation for exposing corruption and challenging government policies. In a secret trial last year, Hunan authorities sentenced Chen Yongzhou (陈永州), who was working for Guangdong-based newspaper New Express, to 22 months in prison for “fabricating and spreading falsehoods to damage the business reputation of others” after he exposed financial fraud at a Changsha construction firm. His colleague Liu Hu (刘虎) spent 346 days in detention on suspicion of “libel” for writing about corruption by a CCP official.
Ethnic minority journalists or online commentators who wrote about issues concerning China’s restive western regions have always faced harsh prison sentences under intense state censorship. Merely commenting on policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or Tibet Autonomous Region has led to lengthy imprisonment on trumped-up political charges, including “separatism.” In a well-known recent case, Ilham Tohti (伊力哈木Ÿ●土赫提), an ethnic Uyghur professor and founder of the online news site Uighurbiz.net, was sentenced to life in prison in September 2014. A colleague of his at Uighurbiz.net and former state media journalist, Hailaite Niyazi (海莱特Ÿ●尼亚孜), has been serving a 15-year punishment since 2010 for giving an interview about violent unrest that broke out in Urumqi in July 2009. The government shut down the website, greatly reducing the amount of non-government information available to observers of Xinjiang and the Uyghur people.
There have been reports that, inside Chinese prisons, journalists have been subjected to torture, hard labor, or other forms of mistreatment. Qi Chonghuai (齐崇淮), a one-time bureau chief with the Fazhi Morning Post, has described being beaten unconscious in a Shandong prison and left believing he would die. Imprisoned in 2008, Qi is serving a 12-year sentence after writing about luxury government buildings. Wang Hanfei (王寒非), the former editor of the Hong Kong-based journal “China Special Report,” was beaten in a Hunan prison and forced to make toy products by hand in 15-hour shifts every day for months. Blogger and online commentator Dong Rubin (董如彬), also known as Bian Min (边民), has said that he was interrogated for 70 to 80 days straight while chained to a chair, likely to force him to confess. Authorities have conducted no known investigations into these allegations, and no one has been held accountable.
There have also been reports of journalists languishing in long pre-trial detention while being stripped of other due process rights. Freelance journalist Jiang Lijun (姜力均) and news assistant Zhang Miao (张淼) have been held for nearly a year without coming before a judge. Police seized them in 2014 around the 25th anniversary of June Fourth and the Hong Kong democracy protests, respectively. Jiang, who is being held in Liaoning for allegedly circulating information online, previously served four years in prison after Yahoo! gave details of his account to Chinese authorities. Beijing police arrested Zhang after she went to Hong Kong to report on the demonstrations this past fall.
CHRD calls on Chinese authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all journalists, bloggers, and citizen journalists from prison and detention. Allegations of torture of journalists should be immediately and independently investigated, and state compensation should be properly provided. The Xi Jinping leadership should take the critical step toward cleaning up corruption in government—by ending state control of the media, lifting censorship, and respecting press freedom.
Media Contacts:
Renee Xia, International Director (Mandarin, English), +1 240 374 8937, reneexia@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @ReneeXiaCHRD
Victor Clemens, Research Coordinator (English), +1 209 643 0539, victorclemens@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @VictorClemens
Frances Eve, Researcher (English), +852 6695 4083, franceseve@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @FrancesEveCHRD
Wendy Lin, Hong Kong Coordinator (Mandarin, Cantonese, English), +852 6932 1274, wendylin@chrdnet.com, Follow on Twitter: @WendyLinCHRD
Categories:
Chinese Authorities Order Muslim Uyghur Shop Owners to Stock Alcohol, Cigarettes
2015-05-04
Authorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region have ordered shop owners and restaurateurs in a mainly Muslim Uyghur village to sell alcohol and cigarettes or face closure of their establishments, despite a public backlash against the products discouraged by followers of Islam, an official source said.
Last week, authorities in Laskuy township, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture’s Hotan county, issued an announcement in the town seat of Aktash village that “all restaurants and supermarkets in our village should place five different brands of alcohol and cigarettes in their shops before [May 1, 2015].”
In addition to directing owners to create “eye-catching displays” to promote the products, the April 29 announcement stated that “anybody who neglects this notice and fails to act will see their shops sealed off, their business suspended, and legal action pursued against them.”
Signed by the Aktash village Party Committee of Laskuy Township, the notice stated that the order had been handed down “from the top echelons of [China’s ruling Communist Party], in order to provide greater convenience to the public.”
Perhat Rozi, chairman of the Political Law Committee of Laskuy township’s party leadership, refused to comment on the announcement, but Aktash village party committee secretary Adil Sulayman told RFA’s Uyghur Service that the new policy was part of an effort to undermine Islam in the area.
“We have a campaign to weaken religion here and this is part of that campaign,” he said.
“Since 2012, people have stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes through their businesses. Even those who benefitted financially from the practice have given it up because they fear public scorn. That is why [the order was issued].”
Sulayman said that abstention from alcohol and cigarettes had become common in Aktash and other parts of Laskuy, with some 70-80 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 45 refraining from drinking and smoking, and while there is no official rule within the Muslim Uyghur community against selling the products, doing so was considered “taboo” for religious reasons.
In the Islamic faith, the Quran refers to the use of intoxicants, such as alcohol, as a “sin” and prohibited by God, while many Muslims discourage smoking cigarettes because of a reference in the holy book that instructs adherents to refrain from participating in any self-destructive practices.
‘Weaken Religion’ campaign
Sulayman said authorities in Xinjiang—where China has launched a series of “strike hard” campaigns in the name of fighting separatism and terrorism—viewed non-smoking Muslim Uyghurs as adhering to “a form of religious extremism.”
He said that as the seat of Laskuy, Aktash was meant to serve as an example to all residents of the township, and his village party committee did not raise the issue of a potential public backlash against the decree when it was first proposed by party leadership.
“We have more than 60 restaurants and stores in our township and I was told that all of them began stocking alcohol and cigarettes within three days of the announcement, but I didn’t inspect the businesses myself,” Sulayman said.
“I do not know whether people were unhappy about it or not, but I only heard that one person argued and one other agreed to do it after talking to the party secretary,” he said.
“Our village is the key village—we have to implement the ‘Weaken Religion’ campaign effectively … Religious sentiment is increasing and this is affecting stability.”
Hotan prefecture in southwestern Xinjiang has been a hotbed of violent stabbing and shooting incidents between ethnic Uyghurs and Chinese security forces, with attacks coming amid a string of assaults and bombings across the region.
As the targets of “strike hard” campaigns, Uyghurs complain of pervasive ethnic discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression by China’s communist government.
Authorities in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region have ordered shop owners and restaurateurs in a mainly Muslim Uyghur village to sell alcohol and cigarettes or face closure of their establishments, despite a public backlash against the products discouraged by followers of Islam, an official source said.
Last week, authorities in Laskuy township, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture’s Hotan county, issued an announcement in the town seat of Aktash village that “all restaurants and supermarkets in our village should place five different brands of alcohol and cigarettes in their shops before [May 1, 2015].”
In addition to directing owners to create “eye-catching displays” to promote the products, the April 29 announcement stated that “anybody who neglects this notice and fails to act will see their shops sealed off, their business suspended, and legal action pursued against them.”
Signed by the Aktash village Party Committee of Laskuy Township, the notice stated that the order had been handed down “from the top echelons of [China’s ruling Communist Party], in order to provide greater convenience to the public.”
Perhat Rozi, chairman of the Political Law Committee of Laskuy township’s party leadership, refused to comment on the announcement, but Aktash village party committee secretary Adil Sulayman told RFA’s Uyghur Service that the new policy was part of an effort to undermine Islam in the area.
“We have a campaign to weaken religion here and this is part of that campaign,” he said.
“Since 2012, people have stopped selling alcohol and cigarettes through their businesses. Even those who benefitted financially from the practice have given it up because they fear public scorn. That is why [the order was issued].”
Sulayman said that abstention from alcohol and cigarettes had become common in Aktash and other parts of Laskuy, with some 70-80 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 45 refraining from drinking and smoking, and while there is no official rule within the Muslim Uyghur community against selling the products, doing so was considered “taboo” for religious reasons.
In the Islamic faith, the Quran refers to the use of intoxicants, such as alcohol, as a “sin” and prohibited by God, while many Muslims discourage smoking cigarettes because of a reference in the holy book that instructs adherents to refrain from participating in any self-destructive practices.
‘Weaken Religion’ campaign
Sulayman said authorities in Xinjiang—where China has launched a series of “strike hard” campaigns in the name of fighting separatism and terrorism—viewed non-smoking Muslim Uyghurs as adhering to “a form of religious extremism.”
He said that as the seat of Laskuy, Aktash was meant to serve as an example to all residents of the township, and his village party committee did not raise the issue of a potential public backlash against the decree when it was first proposed by party leadership.
“We have more than 60 restaurants and stores in our township and I was told that all of them began stocking alcohol and cigarettes within three days of the announcement, but I didn’t inspect the businesses myself,” Sulayman said.
“I do not know whether people were unhappy about it or not, but I only heard that one person argued and one other agreed to do it after talking to the party secretary,” he said.
“Our village is the key village—we have to implement the ‘Weaken Religion’ campaign effectively … Religious sentiment is increasing and this is affecting stability.”
Hotan prefecture in southwestern Xinjiang has been a hotbed of violent stabbing and shooting incidents between ethnic Uyghurs and Chinese security forces, with attacks coming amid a string of assaults and bombings across the region.
As the targets of “strike hard” campaigns, Uyghurs complain of pervasive ethnic discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression by China’s communist government.
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