BEIJING — A court in China
sentenced a man from the country's mainly Muslim Xinjiang region to six years
in jail for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" that included
growing a beard, state-run media reported over the weekend. The man's wife was
given a two-year jail sentence for wearing a veil and burqa.The couple, whose
identity and ethnic group were not identified, were convicted on Sunday by a
court in the desert city of Kashgar, in China's northwest, the China
Youth Daily newspaper reported.The newspaper said city officials made
repeated attempts to encourage the man to cut his beard and for the woman to
remove her veil and burqa as part of an anti-extremism campaign taking place
across Xinjiang called "Project Beauty." One of the initiative's aims
is to stop women from covering their faces or hair.China's government blames a
rising tide of terrorist attacks on Islamic extremism among the region's Uighur
people, a Muslim minority who speak a Turkic language. Hundreds of people have
died over the past two years in violence blamed by the authorities on Uighur
separatists. Uighur exiles contend Chinese oppression of cultural and religious
freedom sparks the violence.The Kashgar People's Court said the man, 38, who
appeared to have a Uighur-sounding name, exhibited behavior that amounted to
defying state law. The woman, whose age was not given, received a lesser
sentence as she "repented her errors."A number of other people were
convicted on the same charge, the Dahebaonewspaper reported, but no
details were given. The court said the convictions were handed down "to
uphold social stability and lasting political stability."Reports of the
convictions were mostly removed from Chinese news websites Monday, revealing
the sensitivity of Beijing's crackdown against perceived extremism within
China's Muslim minority. Human rights groups complain the "picking
quarrels and provoking trouble" charge is increasingly being used by
authorities as a catch-all crime to punish a wide range of dissent.Chinese
authorities regularly pressure news websites to remove content on sensitive
subjects such as Xinjiang and Tibet, or only publish reports from state news
agency Xinhua."A heavy sentence for growing a long beard is typical of the
political persecution" faced by Uighurs, said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman
for the exiled World Uyghur Congress. "If a Chinese person grows a long
beard, it's personal freedom and fashion; if a Uighur does, he's a religious
extremist," said Raxit.The number of criminal trials concluded in Xinjiang
in 2014 jumped 40% compared to 2013, the U.S.-based Dui Hua Foundation, a human
rights advocacy group, said earlier this month. The report concluded that the
rise took place after China's leader Xi Jinping launched an aggressive
anti-terrorism drive.Street posters seen in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi this
month depicted Uighurs sweeping away "extremist" objects such as
burqas and "illegal religious publications," in order to
"cleanly see in the New Year," celebrated in China in mid-February.
And in one Kashgar township, a 45-day training program began this month for 54
people who either wore veils or burqas, or grew beards,Dahebao reported."Their
(Uighurs) educational level is very low, they are deeply affected by extremist
religious thinking, but we can win them over," said local Communist Party
official Wang Huailiang. He advocated learning a skill, such as cooking."Fighting
terrorism should not undermine the authority of the Criminal Law, and should
not be abused," Gan Yuanchun, a lawyer based in central Hunan province who
urged caution, wrote on Sunday on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog.
-Above is the actual article.
However, I wanted to discuss basically this article talks about how a man and a
women were both arrested and convicted for growing a beard and wearing a vail.
The justification is to keep social order and it is believed that beards and
vails represent Muslim extremist. Perhaps this Isis scare is being heard around
the world and although conviction like this are typical in the Chines society I
think it very convenient that the USA today is posting this article and giving
it more attention than in the past. I believe there is some underlying racism
and stereotyping of the Muslim community even her in the states.
