It was the final Friday of Ramadan, an aching hour before dusk, and on the steps of Id Kah, the mosque that marks the heart of this ancient city, things were as they have always been \u2014 almost.<\/p>\n
By Emily Rauhala
\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bJuly 5 at 2:33 PM<\/p>\n
KASHGAR, China \u2014 It was the final Friday of Ramadan, an aching hour before dusk, and on the steps of Id Kah, the mosque that marks the heart of this ancient city, things were as they have always been \u2014 almost.<\/p>\n
Uighur men poured from the mosque\u2019s painted gate; pigeons shuffled in the square; a woman pulled a child toward the shade.<\/p>\n
Then, amid the crowd of worshipers in white, a most unusual apparition: the Chinese flag.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear why an elderly, bearded man carried Communist Party colors to Friday prayer, but the flag\u2019s appearance at the most important mosque in the Xinjiang<\/a> region, during Islam\u2019s most important month, was very much on message. <\/p>\n Years into the high-profile \u201cwar on terror\u201d in the country\u2019s far northwest, China\u2019s officially atheist ruling party wants the world to know that it respects and honors Muslims \u2014 and that the feeling is mutual. <\/p>\n In the run-up to Ramadan this year, the government published a white paper hailing \u201cunprecedented\u201d levels of religious freedom in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, which is home to China\u2019s largest population of Muslims. It described the level of tolerance as being unmatched by \u201cany other period in history.\u201d<\/p>\n Across Kashgar\u2019s refurbished Old City, there are signs extolling the state\u2019s respect for faith. China\u2019s minorities \u201cwarmly welcome the Party\u2019s religious policy,\u201d reads one at Id Kah.<\/p>\n Warm is something of a reach. In recent years, clashes between Uighurs and local authorities have claimed hundreds of lives, including that of a China-praising imam<\/a> who was assassinated <\/a>at the mosque during Ramadan in 2014.<\/p>\n The state says the violence is the product of religious extremism, and it has increased security and surveillance across the region, putting soldiers on the streets, establishing checkpoints, and policing how Uighurs conduct business, worship and dress. <\/p>\n Their tactics have drawn ire at home and outrage abroad <\/a>\u2014 a fact that infuriates Beijing. After stories about Ramadan \u201cfasting bans\u201d made headlines in Indonesia<\/a> and Pakistan<\/a>, China invited officials from both countries to the far northwest for government-guided tours.<\/p>\n An Indonesian official returned from his free trip with white-paper-style praise: \u201cThe [Chinese] state guarantees freedom of religion to all religions,\u201d he said<\/a>. <\/p>\n A Pakistani observer said<\/a> he saw no evidence of restrictions on teachers, students and government employees \u2014 odd, given that those are China\u2019splainly stated rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Ramadan propaganda war says much about faith and freedom in President Xi Jinping\u2019s China.<\/p>\n By the Communist Party\u2019s count, Islam is thriving in Xinjiang. Chinese state news media note<\/a> that the number of mosques in the region has increased tenfold in 30 years and that the government has paid for thousands of students to travel abroad to study the faith. <\/p>\n Chinese authorities insist that Xinjiang\u2019s Muslim Uighurs \u2014 like Christians<\/a> and Tibetan Buddhists<\/a> \u2014 are free to worship as they wish. But what they mean, really, is that they are free to worship on the party\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n In a front-page report on Ramadan in Xinjiang, the Global Times, a party-controlled newspaper, noted<\/a> that Ramadan was proceeding \u201cwithout government interference\u201d because the government has \u201conly imposed an exemption from this practice on Party members, civil servants and underage students.\u201d<\/p>\n Explaining the selective fasting ban, the Global Times cited health concerns associated with fasting and the \u201cspirit of China as a secular country.\u201d In interviews, four residents of Kashgar said they had direct knowledge of the ban, but they insisted on speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.<\/p>\n The seemingly contradictory stance reflects Beijing\u2019s belief that the Communist Party can and should shape religious practice to its own ends.<\/p>\n At a conference in April, Xi urged cadres<\/a> to improve \u201creligious work\u201d by \u201chelping religions adapt to socialist society.\u201d The goal, Xi said, is to help the faithful \u201cmerge religious doctrines with Chinese culture.\u201d<\/p>\n The emphasis on integration frightens many Uighurs, who see Ramadan restrictions as part of a broader effort to curb \u2014 or outright criminalize \u2014 their culture and way of life.<\/p>\n Part of this is demographics. In 1949, with the People\u2019s Republic of China was founded, Han Chinese accounted for about 6 percent<\/a> of Xinjiang\u2019s population; today that figure is more than 40 percent. Many Uighurs say they feel like outsiders in their own home.<\/p>\n The sense of alienation has deepened since 2009 when protests in Urumqi degenerated into violent clashes<\/a>that killed about 200 people, including Uighurs and Han Chinese. The government put the region on lockdown, turning off the Internet for nine months.<\/p>\n The crackdowns intensified with every act of violence<\/a> that followed. Officials have taken steps to sideline Uighur-language education<\/a> and prohibited those younger than 18 from praying at mosques. <\/p>\n Authorities have selectively prosecuted Uighur men for growing beards<\/a> and have arrested Uighur women for wearing certain types of veils. In one town, Muslim shopkeepers reported that local officials forced them<\/a> to sell alcohol and cigarettes \u2014 all in the name of stamping out extremism.<\/p>\n In Kashgar, the government\u2019s anti-terrorism rhetoric is everywhere. A public bathroom in the Old City features a 22-point infographic on how not to become an extremist. Posters at family restaurants offer rewards for information on suspicious activity.<\/p>\n The problem, residents said, is that almost any kind of activity can be deemed suspicious \u2014 especially if you are Uighur.<\/p>\n Convinced that hostile foreign forces\u00ad are instigating violence, local authorities are wary of people with links to anything, or anyone, outside China. In some cases, the government has cut Internet service to those found using virtual private networks to get around Web controls, Kashgar residents said.<\/p>\n Two Uighur men confirmed reports that Kashgar police are stopping people on the street to search the contents of their phones. Foreign-made apps such as Facebook and Skype bring trouble, they said, as does any \u201cIslamic\u201d content \u2014 although what constitutes \u201cIslamic” is unclear.<\/p>\n At a trade fair in Kashgar, a Uighur in the textile business said the police have stopped him and searched his cellphone on more than one occasion. He asked not to be named, saying that talking to a foreign reporter could itself be considered subversive, even extreme.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t matter whether it\u2019s Ramadan, he said, because \u201cthey can pick you up for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Xu Yangjingjing contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was the final Friday of Ramadan, an aching hour before dusk, and on the steps of Id Kah, the mosque that marks the heart of this ancient city, things were as they have always been \u2014 almost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-2804","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\/2804","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=2804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2804\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2804"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=2804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}