{"id":3653,"date":"2017-04-25T21:40:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T21:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.iuhrdf.org\/en\/2017\/04\/25\/china-bans-muhammad-and-jihad-baby-names-heavily-muslim-region\/"},"modified":"2017-04-25T21:40:30","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T21:40:30","slug":"china-bans-muhammad-and-jihad-baby-names-heavily-muslim-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/china-bans-muhammad-and-jihad-baby-names-heavily-muslim-region\/","title":{"rendered":"China Bans \u2018Muhammad\u2019 and \u2018Jihad\u2019 as Baby Names in Heavily Muslim Region"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese government, further tightening its grip on Muslims in western\u00a0China, has prohibited parents from choosing names like \u201cMuhammad,\u201d \u201cArafat\u201d and \u201cJihad\u201d for their children.<\/p>\n<p>By JAVIER C. HERN\u00c1NDEZ<br \/>\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bAPRIL 25, 2017&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>BEIJING \u2014 The Chinese government, further tightening its grip on Muslims in western&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/news\/international\/countriesandterritories\/china\/index.html?inline=nyt-geo\" title=\"More news and information about China.\">China<\/a>, has prohibited parents from choosing names like \u201cMuhammad,\u201d \u201cArafat\u201d and \u201cJihad\u201d for their children.<\/p>\n<p>Officials described the ban, introduced this month, as part of an effort to \u201ccurb religious fervor\u201d in the western region of Xinjiang, home to more than 10 million&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/topics.nytimes.com\/top\/reference\/timestopics\/subjects\/u\/uighurs_chinese_ethnic_group\/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier\" title=\"More articles about Uighurs.\">Uighurs<\/a>, a mostly Muslim minority group.<\/p>\n<p>The government considers Xinjiang&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/02\/24\/world\/asia\/china-xinjiang-gps-vehicles.html\">a hotbed of Islamic extremism<\/a>, violence and separatist thought. But many Uighurs say the government\u2019s strict limits on worship and speech are responsible for tensions in the region.<\/p>\n<p>The list of names, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times by Uighur activists, is titled, \u201cList of Banned Ethnic Minority Names.\u201d It bans more than two dozen names, including \u201cMujahid\u201d and \u201cMedina.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Security officials in Urumqi and other cities in Xinjiang confirmed the ban. Some said in interviews that if residents did not comply, they risked forfeiting critical benefits for their children, including education and health care.<\/p>\n<p>Rights advocates said the ban showed the lengths to which the government would go to limit the civil liberties of Uighurs in the name of fighting terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChina\u2019s policies are increasingly hostile,\u201d said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, a group in Munich that advocates self-determination for Xinjiang. \u201cUighur people have to be cautious if they want to give their children names they are happy with, and at the same time avoid punishment from the government.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sophie Richardson, the China director of Human Rights Watch, said that choosing baby names should be a \u201cjoyful, private discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the latest absurd restriction that the Chinese government has imposed on people in Xinjiang,\u201d she wrote in an email.<\/p>\n<p>To combat what officials describe as extremism in Xinjiang, the Chinese government has put in place a series of restrictions in recent years. Earlier this month, for example, security officials imposed bans on long beards and veils in public places.<\/p>\n<p>This year, officials held large rallies of paramilitary and police forces as a show of force in Xinjiang. The region has struggled with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/09\/26\/world\/asia\/death-toll-in-xinjiang-violence-may-be-higher-than-reported.html\">clashes between residents and security officials<\/a>&nbsp;and occasional acts of domestic terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>__________<\/p>\n<p><em>Karoline Kan contributed research.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chinese government, further tightening its grip on Muslims in western\u00a0China, has prohibited parents from choosing names like \u201cMuhammad,\u201d \u201cArafat\u201d and \u201cJihad\u201d for their children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3653","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\/3653","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=3653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3653"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}