One million Chinese people ‘move into Muslim homes to report on Islamic or unpatriotic beliefs'
Uninvited, more than one million Han Chinese people have reportedly moved into the homes of Uighur Muslim families to report on whether they display Islamic or unpatriotic beliefs.
Sent to homes in Xinjiang province by the Chinese government, American anthropologist Darren Byler said they were tasked with watching for signs that their hosts’ attachment to Islam might be “extreme”.
The informants, who describe themselves as “relatives” of the families they are staying with, are said to have received specific instructions on how to get them to let their guard down.
As devout Muslims would refuse cigarettes and alcohol. this is seen as one way of finding out whether they were extreme.
“Had a Uighur host just greeted a neighbour in Arabic with the words ‘Assalamu Alaykum’? That would need to go in the notebook,” said Dr Byler, in research published by Asia Society’s Centre on US-China Relations. “Was that a copy of the Quran in the home? Was anyone praying on Friday or fasting during Ramadan? Was a little sister’s dress too long or a little brother’s beard irregular?”
As many as a million Uighurs are thought to have been rounded up and placed in “re-education’ centers“, in what China claims is a clampdown on religious extremism.
Those who have spent time in them, have however claimed that they were forced to undergo an intensive indoctrination programme, urged to renounce Islam and instead heap praise on the Chinese Communist Party. One former inmate claimed Muslim inmates were forced to eat pork and drink alcohol.
According to the World Uighur Congress (WUC), officials in the region ordered all restaurants to remain open and a series of measures were put in place seemingly designed to prevent people observing the holy month.
Chinese authorities have also been accused of putting Uighur children and those from other ethnic minority groups into state-run orphanages across the western Xinjiang region, even if their parents were not dead, as some one million adults in their families were sent to internment camps.
Dilxat Raxit, of the exile World Uighur Congress, has also claimed officials in Xinjiang warned them that they must surrender religious items such as the Quran or face “harsh punishments”.
The Independent has contacted the Chinese Embassy in London for comment.
Kaynakça
- https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighur-muslim-people-move-homes-xinjiang-china-religion-a8648561.html
