Travelers and suspect persons must be closely watched, and mosques and shops searched for ‘illegal’ material, regulations say.<\/p>\n
2015-06-24<\/span><\/p>\n Authorities in northwestern China\u2019s troubled Xinjiang region have ordered government workers to closely monitor the daily movements of ethnic Uyghurs during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, with at least one county issuing guidelines calling for the intrusive searches of convenience stores, repair shops, and mosques.<\/p>\n While increasing their vigilance around the clock, security personnel may no longer watch television or play table tennis while on duty, and must immediately report \u201csuspicious activities\u201d to their superiors, says the seven-point document issued in Aksu (in Chinese, Akeksu) prefecture\u2019s Shayar (Shaya) county on June 15, two days before the start of the Muslim fasting period.<\/p>\n The document, a copy of which was recently obtained by RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service, warns \u201cRamadan is coming,\u201d and urges village cadres to keep a close watch on politically suspect families, who are required during the fasting month to report in person to authorities each morning and night.<\/p>\n Other regulations instruct government workers to increase their \u201cmanagement\u201d of persons visiting Shayar from other areas, paying particularly close attention to Muslims traveling from other countries\u2014particularly Egypt\u2014and taking fingerprints and hair samples from each.<\/p>\n Shops used to repair farm implements must now be checked to ensure they are not being used to manufacture lethal weapons, the regulations state, while mosques must also be searched, with prayer carpets lifted to check for the presence of \u201cillegal\u201d religious material.<\/p>\n Local authorities must also ensure that shops owned by Uyghurs are well-stocked with alcohol and cigarettes, products discouraged by Islamic custom, and are encouraged to set up workplace \u201ccompetitions\u201d\u2014including wheat-cutting contests\u2014to promote increased physical activity during the Ramadan fasting period, the document says.<\/p>\n Attacks on observance<\/b><\/p>\n Uyghurs living in Xinjiang are meanwhile being subjected to increased interference in their daily lives in an attempt by officials to weaken their participation in religious observances during the fasting month, sources say.<\/p>\n Restaurants in the region are typically required to stay open all day, even if the owners are Muslim, and Uyghur children and young people are often required to attend free lunches in the region\u2019s schools and universities to avoid the dawn-to-dusk fast traditionally observed during Ramadan.<\/p>\n \u201cNot many people are fasting in our county, because we are holding meetings all the time,\u201d a government worker in Kashgar (Kashi) prefecture\u2019s Maralbeshi (Bachu) county told RFA this week.<\/p>\n \u201cThe meetings are held mostly in the mornings, and everyone in our county is forced to participate,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are forced to eat and drink,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cThe village office is making us dance,\u201d another resident of the county said, adding, \u201cThey are doing this so that we won\u2019t fast.\u201d<\/p>\n Though agreeing in principle with central government policies and directives, another Maralbeshi resident described as \u201cunspeakable\u201d the methods used by authorities to enforce regulations at the local level.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see it with your own eyes, you will know what I mean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cOur rulers can do whatever they want.\u201d<\/p>\n Reported by RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Dolkun Kamberi and Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Richard Finney.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Travelers and suspect persons must be closely watched, and mosques and shops searched for ‘illegal’ material, regulations say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-1904","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\/1904","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=1904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1904"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=1904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}