Marriages must be held at government-sanctioned venues with approved officiants, sources say.<\/p>\n
2017-04-18<\/p>\n
An ethnic Uyghur cadre in northwestern China\u2019s Xinjiang region has been fired from her post for holding her wedding ceremony at home according to Islamic traditions instead of at a government-sanctioned venue, local officials and residents said.<\/p>\n
Salamet Memetimin, the communist party secretary for Chaka township\u2019s Bekchan village, in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture\u2019s Chira (Cele) county, was among 97 officials recently charged with disciplinary violations, according to an April 10 report by the state-run Hotan Daily<\/em> newspaper.<\/p>\n Memetimin was demoted on March 23, the report said, without providing details.<\/p>\n But according to a Uyghur farmer from the area, who recently spoke with RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service on condition of anonymity, Memetimin was relieved of her duties for undertaking her marriage vows\u2014known as \u201cnikah\u201d in Muslim culture\u2014at her own home.<\/p>\n \u201cThese days, practices such as holding one\u2019s wedding vows at one\u2019s home are becoming a thing of the past, and everything is done according to the law,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWeddings are currently held under the supervision of our village chiefs\u2014they are the ones who get the marriage certificates from the police station \u2026 on our behalf. The wedding ceremonies even need to be held in the village [government] offices.\u201d<\/p>\n The farmer said that local officials had been requiring wedding ceremonies to be held in village offices or in other venues provided by the township government for \u201ca year or so.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was married three years ago, but at that time my husband was not a party member yet, so we were able to hold our nikah [at home],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n A Han Chinese official from Bekchan village confirmed to RFA that weddings cannot be held in homes \u201cin the southern Uyghur region.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is very clearly written in the government directive\u2014you cannot have your vows at your own house, so that is why they were charged,\u201d said the official, who also asked not to be named.<\/p>\n \u201cIn attendance at a wedding should be the village party branch secretary and a specially-appointed religious leader. You can take your vows, as long as it is under the close supervision of those two people.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the official, if wedding vows are taken at home, unsanctioned religious leaders \u201cmight promote deviant views that contradict ethnic unity and the sovereignty of the county.\u201d<\/p>\n Three days prior to the wedding, couples must submit an application to the township government and, if permission is granted, the event can be hosted by the local party chief at the village \u201cservice home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like that in every part of Hotan these days.\u201d<\/p>\n Security measures<\/strong><\/p>\n Several county governments in Hotan have bolstered \u201canti-terror\u201d security measures since February, when authorities shot dead three Uyghurs who attacked passersby with knives in Guma (Pishan) county, killing five and injuring five others.<\/p>\n Sources have told RFA that the three attackers appear to have been motivated by anger at threats by local officials to punish them for praying with their families.<\/p>\n Other residents of Bekchan village told RFA that important cultural traditions such as nikah ceremonies are viewed with suspicion by local officials and have been all but wiped out in many parts of Xinjiang.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to undergo marriage vows, you must do it according to law\u2014conducted by an approved person, such as a government-designated religious figure,\u201d one resident said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you invite unsanctioned officiants on your own, it\u2019s deemed illegal and will be punished.\u201d<\/p>\n Another resident said that while some of the cultural traditions remain, holding wedding ceremonies at village offices has made the events less joyful.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reception and celebration\u2014with singing and dancing\u2014is held in village office, but then afterwards, everyone returns to their homes,\u201d the resident said.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of the cultural costumes [and other traditions] associated with marriages have been eliminated, and very few remain.\u201d<\/p>\n China has vowed to crack down on what it calls religious extremism in Xinjiang, and regularly conducts \u201cstrike hard\u201d campaigns including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.<\/p>\n While China blames Uyghur extremists for terrorist attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.<\/p>\n Reported by Mihray Abdilim for RFA\u2019s Uyghur Service. Translated by Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marriages must be held at government-sanctioned venues with approved officiants, sources say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3633","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\/3633","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=3633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3633"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}