{"id":1759,"date":"2015-03-31T23:41:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T23:41:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2015\/03\/31\/mystery-surrounds-disappearance-xinjiang-article-and-related-apology\/"},"modified":"2015-03-31T23:41:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T23:41:43","slug":"mystery-surrounds-disappearance-xinjiang-article-and-related-apology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/mystery-surrounds-disappearance-xinjiang-article-and-related-apology\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Surrounds Disappearance of Xinjiang Article and Related Apology"},"content":{"rendered":"

The article, about a Muslim couple in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang being sentenced to prison for growing a long beard and wearing a burqa, appeared in state news media on Sunday. By Monday morning, it had vanished.<\/p>\n

By Dan Levin
March 31, 2015 9:05 am<\/p>\n

The article, about a Muslim couple in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang being sentenced to prison for growing a long beard and wearing a burqa, appeared in state news media on Sunday. By Monday morning, it had vanished.<\/p>\n

Such occurrences are commonplace in China, where censors frequently purge without explanation online information that the government deems sensitive. What happened next was not.<\/p>\n

On Monday afternoon, someone claiming to be the reporter who wrote the deleted article for the Kashgar Special Zone News, which covers the ethnically divided region of Xinjiang, posted a cryptic confession on the popular social messaging service Weixin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe report wasn\u2019t verified with thorough interviews, which caused serious inconsistencies with facts and violated the authenticity of news,\u201d the person wrote. \u201cI hereby sincerely apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n

In countries with free media and established journalistic ethics, such a mea culpa would be taken at face value. But China\u2019s state-controlled media must obey the ruling Communist Party, which often suppresses truth in the name of \u201csocial stability.\u201d Corrections are rare. By Tuesday, the apology, too, had disappeared.<\/p>\n

The online censorship and strange, if fleeting, apology open a window into the Chinese media\u2019s spotty record on transparency and trust, problems made all the more troubling when applied to Xinjiang, where the authorities are trying to assimilate the region\u2019s Uighur minority<\/a>, a largely Sunni Muslim, Turkic-speaking people, into the ethnic Han mainstream.<\/p>\n

In recent years, clashes between the two communities<\/a> have claimed hundreds of lives, which the Chinese government tends to blame on separatist Islamic terrorists. Critics say the crackdown that has intensified in Xinjiang is also seeking to quash expressions of Uighur cultural identity and religion.<\/p>\n

Uighurs have complained of job discrimination and the suppression of Uighur-language education as millions of Han migrants have settled in Xinjiang, the Uighurs\u2019 ancient homeland. Much of the violence has occurred in and around Kashgar, an oasis city on the storied Silk Road.<\/p>\n

Reporting in the region has become difficult for foreign journalists, who are often tailed by security agents or barred from certain areas by the police. The information blackout has left outsiders largely dependent on terse state media reports that include few confirmable details. Some incidents are only reported by Uighur-speaking journalists and advocates based outside of China.<\/p>\n

\n
\"A<\/div>\n

A veiled Uighur woman sitting at a food stall in Kashgar.Credit Kevin Frayer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

According to the deleted article, an unidentified 38-year-old man was sentenced to six years in prison and his wife to two years by the Kashgar People\u2019s Court for ignoring regulations aimed at \u201cwiping out\u201d the wearing of long beards, burqas and face veils. The couple was part of a larger group of lawbreakers \u201cblinded by extreme religious thoughts,\u201d according to the article.<\/p>\n

The article said the couple was found guilty of \u201cpicking quarrels and provoking troubles,\u201d a vague criminal charge that the authorities used against five feminists detained in March<\/a> as they prepared to protest sexual harassment on the eve of International Women\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

Since 2011, human rights advocates say, the authorities in Xinjiang have made it increasingly difficult for observant Muslim Uighurs to dress according to the tenets of their faith. A widespread campaign, known as Project Beauty<\/a>, encourages Uighur women to \u201clet your hair fly in the wind\u201d and show their faces. A companion campaign targets men under 50 who are \u201curged to voluntarily shave off the beard,\u201d the article said. Last year, a city in Xinjiang banned people in veils and long beards from using public buses.<\/p>\n

Despite repeated attempts from local officials to embrace the spirit of Project Beauty, \u201cthe couple turned a deaf ear to it,\u201d said the article, adding that the woman received a shorter sentence after promising government officials to rectify her behavior upon release. \u201cThe People\u2019s Court has given me another chance to be a human,\u201d she was reported to have said.<\/p>\n

Why exactly the report was deemed too sensitive for publication \u2014 and a rare personal apology was issued \u2014 is unclear. Chinese news media frequently report on cases of Uighurs sentenced, imprisoned and sometimes executed for \u201cviolent terrorism,\u201d \u201cinciting ethnic hatred and discrimination\u201d or \u201cexploiting superstition to undermine implementation of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

But officials may have become uncomfortable with the scrutiny triggered by the news accounts of people jailed for their physical appearance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unacceptable and ridiculous,\u201d Dilxat Raxit, spokesman of the World Uighur Congress, an organization of exiled Uighur groups, wrote in an emailed statement. He called the sentences a \u201cmanifestation of political persecution\u201d that would only provoke Uighurs to defend their dignity through resistance.<\/p>\n

After the apology appeared online, an editor at the Xinjiang Economic Daily, which had also run the article, confirmed that it was ordered deleted by the State Council Information Office, the Chinese agency in charge of controlling the Internet and disseminating government propaganda. But reached by phone on Monday, a different editor at the Xinjiang Economic Daily denied that either her newspaper or the Kashgar Special Zone News had carried the article.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to the State Council Information Office, no one knows who first published the article,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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