Western China city seeks to banish Muslim veil

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Western China city seeks to banish Muslim veil

Thu Dec 15, 2011 2:56am EST

(Reuters) - A city in heavily Muslim far western China has begun a campaign to discourage veils and growing long beards in a bid to "dilute religious consciousness," media reports said Thursday.

The notice by the government in the Xinjiang city of Yining was uploaded in full by several Chinese news websites, and by Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, though it then vanished from the Yining government's website (网站首页-中国伊宁政务门户网站 伊宁市政府网).

Many Uighurs, a Turkic language-speaking Muslim people native to Xinjiang, resent Chinese rule and controls on their religion, culture and language, and the region has seen sporadic cases of violent unrest.

The notice said the government in the Dunmaili district of Yining had decided to "further implement the Party's activities to dilute religious consciousness and advocate a civilized and healthy lifestyle."

One of the campaign's aims, it said, was to end the "the abnormal phenomenon" of ethnic minority women and youth wearing Arab dress, growing long beards or covering their faces in veils.

Women who had already "been transformed" would be invited to hold talks to discuss their experience, as would women who had launched successful careers.

Yining government officials declined to comment when contacted by telephone.

Hou Hanmin, a Xinjiang government spokeswoman, told Reuters she was not aware of the notice, but that generally people in the region were free to wear what they wanted, including ethnic minorities.

"However, for certain jobs and in education there are rules about what you cannot wear simply as a matter of convenience," she said by telephone.

Yining, also known as Ghulja or Yili, has a population of some 515,000 people, about 46 percent of whom are Uighur, according to the 2010 census figures. It was the site of deadly riots in 1997.

While Uighurs have traditionally practiced a more relaxed form of Islam, parts of Xinjiang have become noticeably more conservative and Islamic over the past few years, despite government efforts to reverse that trend.

Western China city seeks to banish Muslim veil | Reuters
 

mylegend

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I read the publication, it encourage woman not to wear veil but did not criminalized it like the French did.
 

anoop_mig25

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The Paki netizens have an interesting take over this news though, some are calling the "Hijab" not an Islamic practice(they protested the French ban for suppressing their right to practice their faith), a few say Uighurs are not Muslims and are terrorists while there are a few who call this article an India-Western-Zionist propaganda to cause rift b/w China and the Muslims whom the Chinese respect a lot. Their hypocrisy is nauseating.
well can u post some of their quotes form nets and and from which forum :namaste:
 

Tshering22

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Guess all countries are moving towards this positive directions while in our country, votebank is being played sick!
 

Virendra

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Wonder what the flag bearers of Islam in our neighborhood would be thinking right now.
They are neck deep in frustration and despair, it might add salt to the wounds.
But wait, it will hurt only if they're are in senses enough to feel it. The way Pakistan is behaving right now, I doubt that.
There is a perception that Burqa adds to internal security woes. One of the few points where the French and Chinese agree.
Is Armand reading this thread?

Regards,
Virendra
 

The Messiah

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Guess all countries are moving towards this positive directions while in our country, votebank is being played sick!
We are doing fine. There is no need to ban anything.

Those who wear burqa dont work...while those who do work dont wear.
 

tony4562

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The veil-policy in a certain chinese city has absolutely nothing to do with any foreign country including Pakistan. First of them all, pakistani are ethnically different from the Uighurs. Then the China-Pakistan relationship is a state-to-state relationship that has absolutely nothing to do with religion. Thirdly, China is not out atgainst Islam, China is merely against certain 'stone-age' practices that are no longer compatible with the modern world.

China has no relationship or contacts with any muslim organizations, in Pakistan or any other country. And China is against terrorism of any type.
 

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