The men are accused of religious extremism for sporting the Islamic symbol.<\/p>\n
2015-06-11<\/span><\/p>\n A group of five Muslim ethnic Uyghur men who sport \u201ccrescent moon-shaped\u201d beards are on trial in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region for \u201creligious extremism\u201d after they were found to have secretly attended unsanctioned Islamic sermons, according to a Uyghur member of the ruling Communist Party.<\/p>\n Kurbanjan Omer, a well-known spokesman on official government positions to the Uyghur community, told RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service that he attended a court hearing for the five men last week in Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture\u2019s Atush (in Chinese, Atushi) city.<\/p>\n \u201cThe five were accused of \u2018illegal religious activities\u2019 because they secretly attended so-called \u2018tebligh\u2019 [religious sermons delivered by extremists] and all wore \u2018crescent moon-shaped\u2019 beards\u201d in an apparent reference to the \u201cstar and crescent\u201d symbol that had been used by two short-lived Islamic republics in the region, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir actions went against the 26 kinds of \u2018illegal religious activities\u2019 published by the party committee of the Kizilsu Kirghiz Autonomous Prefecture.\u201d<\/p>\n The Atush City People\u2019s Procuratorate recommended at the hearing that the five men, aged 25-45, be handed sentences of between one and three years in prison, he said, adding that a final verdict would be delivered at their next court appearance.<\/p>\n According to Omer, crescent moon-shaped beards are \u201cincreasingly popular among the young Uyghur generation,\u201d and those who sport the style of facial hair\u2014known as \u201cay-saqal\u201d\u2014are monitored by the local government.<\/p>\n \u201cI consider their behavior to be at the border of \u2018religious extremism\u2019 and it deserves punishment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThese people are so young, why do they all like to wear moustaches and beards? I am a 66-year-old man, but I\u2019ve never had a beard \u2026 If the party and government say that young [Uyghur] people should not have moustaches and beards of any variety, I think it is definitely illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n Chinese officials frequently describe Turkic-speaking Muslims from Xinjiang as separatists and terrorists. They have restricted Uyghurs in some parts of the region from wearing burqas, head scarves, veils and beards.<\/p>\n Omer, who regularly gives lectures on \u201cfighting terrorism\u201d and \u201cethnic unity\u201d in Xinjiang, said he enjoys a close relationship with the region\u2019s Han Chinese officials and would continue to defend Beijing\u2019s policies, despite being \u201ctargeted for revenge\u201d over his views by members of the Uyghur community.<\/p>\n Targeting beards<\/b><\/p>\n Uyghur rights groups accuse the Chinese authorities of heavy-handed rule in Xinjiang, including curbs on Islamic practices and the culture and language of the Uyghur people.<\/p>\n Last month, two successive suicide bombing attacks which killed six people and injured four others at a security checkpoint station in Hotan (Hetian) prefecture\u2019s Lop (Luopu) county may have been motivated by \u201canger over the restrictions placed on the wearing of veils and beards,\u201d a local police official told RFA at the time.<\/p>\n The primary function of the security checkpoint was to inspect \u201cextremists\u201d sporting the head coverings and facial hair, police said.<\/p>\n In August last year, authorities in Karamay city prohibited people with beards or those wearing Islamic clothing from traveling on public transportation, prompting anger from the Washington-based Uyghur American Association (UAA), which called the policy \u201cracist\u201d against Uyghurs.<\/p>\n Speaking to RFA on Wednesday, vice chairman of the UAA Ilshat Hesen dismissed the policy targeting facial hair in Xinjiang as \u201cridiculous,\u201d and indicative of how Chinese authorities \u201cviolate the most basic human rights of Uyghurs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWearing a moustache or beard is not considered a crime anywhere else in the world,\u201d he said, adding that Beijing\u2019s policies in Xinjiang are \u201cmore extreme than the so-called \u2018religious extremism\u2019 practiced by Uyghurs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe crescent moon is a symbol of Islam and it is also part of the symbol, along with a white star, on the blue Uyghur national flag [of the two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 1940s], so the authorities are very sensitive to crescent moon-shaped beards.\u201d<\/p>\n Chinese authorities have blamed the terrorist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and \u201cseparatists\u201d from Xinjiang for a series of attacks in the region which have expanded in scale and sophistication in recent years.<\/p>\n Reported by Eset Sulaiman for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Eset Sulaiman. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The men are accused of religious extremism for sporting the Islamic symbol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1871"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}