US Muslims Demand End of China Ramadan Ban

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

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CAIRO – Deploring increasing restrictions on practicing Islam in China's northwestern district of Xinjiang, a leading American Muslim group has sent a letter to the Chinese President urging him to end all state-sanctioned denial of religious freedoms targeting Muslims.

"The ability of Muslims in Xinjiang to freely practice their faith is allegedly being obstructed by local authorities who routinely attempt to ban fasting during Ramadan under a state campaign to suppress Islamic religious practices and local Muslim traditions," Nihad Awad, National Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), wrote in a letter to President Xi Jinping.

"These acts of state religious suppression also reportedly include harassing Muslim men who grow beards and women who wear Islamic attire.

"It is also reported that Muslims under the age of 18 are prohibited from practicing their religion and that authorities impose heavy fines on families whose children study the Quran, Islam's revealed text, or fast during Ramadan."

Every year, Chinese authorities have repeatedly imposed restrictions on Uighur Muslim in the northwestern region of Xinjiang every Ramadan.

In Ramadan, adult Muslims, save the sick and those traveling, abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex between dawn and sunset.

Earlier in December, China banned the wearing of Islamic veiled robes in public in Urumqi, the capital of the province of Xinjiang.

The law in the predominantly Muslim region came as Beijing intensified its so-called campaign against “religious extremism” that it blames for recent violence.

"The Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to those who practice Islam. As a signatory to the United Nations Charter, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the People's Republic of China is responsible for ensuring that Muslims in Xinjiang and across greater China are entitled to equal protection under the law against any state discrimination and against any incitement to discrimination," the letter said.

"The American Muslim community and CAIR respectfully urge the People's Republic of China to uphold its own laws and international conventions by removing all barriers to religious freedom for the Muslims in Xinjiang, for Muslims throughout China and for the rights of all other people of faith in your nation."

CAIR also requested a meeting between the Chinese ambassador in Washington, D.C., and representatives of the American Muslim community and other concerned parties to discuss the issue of religious freedom.

Uighur Muslims are a Turkish-speaking minority of eight million in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

Xinjiang, which activists call East Turkestan, has been autonomous since 1955 but continues to be the subject of massive security crackdowns by Chinese authorities.

Rights groups accuse Chinese authorities of religious repression against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang in the name of counter terrorism.

Earlier in 2014, Xinjiang banned the practicing of religion in government buildings, as well as wearing clothes or logos associated with religious extremism.

Last May, Muslim shops and restaurants in a Chinese village in northwestern Xinjiang have been ordered to sell cigarettes and alcohol or face closure.

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