Table of Contents
ISLAM IN CHINA
- Islam has been practiced in Chinese society for 1,400 years.
- Currently, Muslims are a minority group in China, representing between 0.45% to 1.8% of the total population according to the latest estimates.
THE CCP STANCE
- The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is officially atheist. The party prohibits its nearly ninety million party members from holding religious beliefs, and it has demanded the expulsion of party members who belong to religious organizations. Officials have said that party membership and religious beliefs are incompatible, and they discourage families of CCP members from publicly participating in religious ceremonies.
RELIGION IN CHINA
- The Chinese State Council, the government’s administrative authority, passed new regulations on religious affairs, which took effect in February 2018, to allow state-registered religious organizations to possess property, publish literature, train and approve clergy, and collect donations. Yet alongside these rights come heightened government controls.
- The revised rules include restrictions on religious schooling and the times and locations of religious celebrations, as well as monitoring of online religious activity and reporting donations that exceed 100,000 yuan (around $15,900).
TERRORISM IN CHINA
- 1992 Ürümqi bombings – On 5 February 1992, four bombs exploded in public buildings and on two buses, line 2 and line 30, in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China. The bombings resulted in three deaths and 23 injuries.
- 2011 Hotan attack – The 2011 Hotan attack was a bomb-and-knife attack that occurred in Hotan, Xinjiang, China on July 18, 2011. According to witnesses, the assailants were a group of 18 young Uyghur men who opposed the local government’s campaign against the burqa
- 2010 Aksu bombing – The 2010 Aksu bombing was a bombing in Aksu, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China that resulted in at least seven deaths and fourteen injuries when an Uyghur man detonated explosives in a crowd of police and paramilitary guards
XINJIANG RE-EDUCATION CAMPS
- Estimate people there – 1.5 million to 3 million
- In November and December 2018, the magazine Bitter Winter released three videos it claimed had been shot inside two camps in the Yining area. The videos show jail-like features and the magazine claimed they proved that the camps are detention facilities rather than “schools”.
DETAINEES LISTENING TO SPEECHES IN A RE-EDUCATION CAMP IN LOP COUNTY, XINJIANG, APRIL 2017
IMPORTANCE OF XINJIANG
U.S TARGETING CHINA OVER DETENTION CENTERS
- The US has said it will impose visa restrictions on Chinese officials accused of involvement in repression of Muslim populations.
- It follows the decision on Monday to blacklist 28 Chinese organisations linked by the US to allegations of abuse in the Xinjiang region.
- US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the Chinese government had instituted “a highly repressive campaign”.
U.S AND CHINA
- In a statement, Mr Pompeo accused the Chinese government of a string of abuses against Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs, Kyrgyz Muslims and other minority Muslim groups.
- These included “mass detentions in internment camps; pervasive, high-tech surveillance; draconian controls on expressions of cultural and religious identities; and coercion of individuals to return from abroad to an often perilous fate in China”.
- China has rebuffed the US moves.
- “There is no such thing as these so-called ‘human rights issues’ as claimed by the United States,” foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Monday.
U.S CHINA
- “The United States calls on the People’s Republic of China to immediately end its campaign of repression in Xinjiang, release all those arbitrarily detained, and cease efforts to coerce members of Chinese Muslim minority groups residing abroad to return to China to face an uncertain fate,” the US statement said.
- The US and China are currently embroiled in a trade war, and have sent delegations to Washington for a meeting about the tensions
INDIA’S RESPONSE
- Reacting sharply to reports of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan discussing Kashmir, the Ministry of External Affairs Wednesday reaffirmed India’s stance on Kashmir and stated that it is not for other countries to comment on its internal affairs.
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