China’s Hui Muslims fearful education ban sign of curbs to come

For some in China’s ethnic Hui Muslim minority here, a recent ban on young people engaging in religious education in mosques is an unwelcome interference in how they lead their lives. Their big fear is the Chinese government may be bringing in measures in this northwestern province of Gansu that are similar to some of those used in the crackdown on Uighur Muslims in the giant Xinjiang region further to the west.

Well-integrated into society and accustomed to decades of smooth relations with the government, many Hui have watched with detachment as authorities have subjected Xinjiang to near-martial law, with armed police checkpoints, reeducation centres, and mass DNA collection.

But in January, education officials from the local government in Guanghe county, which is a heavily-Muslim area, banned children from attending religious education during the Lunar New Year break. That lasts for several weeks around the week-long public holiday period that started on Thursday. It is unclear if the ban, similar to those used by the authorities in the Uighur communities, will continue after the holiday, but it appears to conform to new national regulations that took effect on Feb. 1 aiming to increase oversight over religion.

Residents in the city of Linxia, the capital of Gansu’s so-called “autonomous” prefecture for the Hui people, about 50 km to the west of Guanghe, told Reuters that similar restrictions were in place there. “We feel it is ridiculous and were astonished,” said Li Haiyang, a Hui imam from the eastern province of Henan who in a widely circulated online article denounced the policy as violating China’s constitution.

Such bans had been conveyed verbally in recent years, Li told Reuters, but implementation was uneven and often ignored. The more forceful rollout this year shows authorities are serious about enforcement, he said. The Linxia prefecture government, which oversees Linxia city and Guanghe, did not provide details of the policy, but said China’s constitution required separation of religion and education. “Religious affairs management ... adheres to the direction of the Sinofication of religion, and firmly resists and guards against the spread and infiltration of extremist religious ideology,” the Linxia government’s publicity department said in a fax in response to questions from Reuters. “Maintaining legal management is the greatest concept in the protection of religion,” it said in a statement that stressed stability. — Reuters