Islamic school offers anti-extremism course

Xinjiang institute trains religious staff on correct political stance

The largest Islamic training institute in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is committed to training religious staff with the correct political stance and excellent moral traits to uphold social stability and ethnic unity.

To achieve that goal, the institute attaches great importance to both political and antiextremist education.

“These include lectures on laws, the report of the 19th National Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” Elijan Anayit, head of the CPC committee of the Islamic Institute in Xinjiang, told the Global Times.

Located in Urumqi, the Islamic Institute in Xinjiang started recruiting students from 1987 and has helped train religious staff, including imams for mosques.

The Global Times reporter saw banners with phrases from Xi’s speeches, including “Cherish ethnic unity as if it was our eyes” in the institute.

Students need to take courses on religious doctrines and Putonghua in the institute, and after five years of study, they need to pass a final exam before being deployed to mosques in other regions in Xinjiang, Elijan said.

Courses on religious doctrine emphasize peace and solidarity, and reveal that extremism distorts Islam doctrines and is anti-human and antisociety, he said.

The three evil forces – extremism, separatism and terrorism – are trying to influence the students. That’s why the institute has strengthened efforts to enhance the students’ immunity from evil forces, Elijan said.

“We repeatedly stress to students that as Chinese citizens, we should love our country first and that the three evil forces want to separate our country and sabotage ethnic unity… When they graduate from the institute and work in mosques, they will impart what they have learned to other religious groups,” he said.

Aside from educating religious staff, the institute helps foreigners learn about China’s ethnic and religious policies.

Abdurekef Tumunyaz, vice chairman of the 12th Xinjiang Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and president of the Islamic Institute, told the Global Times that the institute frequently receives foreigners.

“A tour to our institute would help foreigners better understand that the central government respects all religions and freedom of religion,” he said.

Tashanov Olimjon, a senior editor from Uzbekistan who visited the institute on Monday, told the Global Times that he had the opportunity to learn about China’s religious policies and was touched to see students learning religious doctrine in class.

Zlobin Pavel, vice editor-inchief of Kazakhstan Komsomolskaya Pravda, said he was impressed with the facilities in the institute. What he saw in the institute shows that people from any ethnic group with any religious belief can live a good life.

Several Global Times (GT) reports on Islamic training institutes in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have attracted Western attention recently. Some Western media outlets made a deliberate misinterpretation out of context. They described the education as “detention” and even equated the institutes with “concentration camps,” baselessly criticizing China’s human rights.

Another GT article about a ban on underage students in Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region taking part in religious activities during the summer holiday was misinterpreted as well. The Associated Press quoted the GT article in hyping China’s “crackdowns” on traditional minority culture, ignoring China’s education law that separates education from religious influence.

Some religious thoughts have a tendency toward extremism and terrorist activities in recent years are closely connected to religious extremism, which is also a major hindrance to development. The training institute in Xinjiang is committed to lecturing students on the correct political stance and good moral traits so as to enhance their immunity from evil forces. By aiming to lecture students on the perils of extremism and prevent their religious activities from breaching the law, such education is commonplace and is the best protection for human rights and religious culture. It conforms to China’s laws and human rights principles.

Anti-terrorism is a global campaign. According to media reports, around 300 East Turkestan terrorists from Xinjiang joined the group in Afghanistan and Syria, and some are trying to return to China after their Middle East base was vanquished. The backflow of terrorists posed a huge threat not only to China, but also the whole world.

The hotbed for evil forces must be eradicated: This is something about which the international community has already reached a consensus. Religious activities must abide by laws of modern states that separate religion from politics. China, in an attempt to safeguard the country’s security and societal stability, has been unswervingly following this principle and striving to find a governance model that suits itself. The country has spared no effort in cracking down upon terrorism and rooting out any condition that may breed extremism.

Some Western countries, on the contrary, have failed in this regard. They choose to turn a blind eye to China’s anti-terrorism achievements. Worse still, they view Xinjiang’s training center with colored spectacles, using so-called human rights to criticize China. They may have not realized it yet, but their bias against China is highly likely to create favorable conditions for the blossoming and thriving of extremism.

The terrible reality in the West reminds us that terrorist attacks will stage a comeback sooner or later if no effective actions have been taken to prevent the spread of religious extremism.