China’s increasing hostility to the free practice of Islam is an affront to a basic human right and further threatens to isolate China in the world.
Already well known is China’s program to force Muslim Uighur people in the semi-autonomous Xinjiang region into giant re-education camps, and to attempt to destroy the cultural links to Islam in that area.
It is now reported that China is implementing a confidential government program to suppress Muslim cultural expression nationwide, especially the Islamic halal practices that China claims are becoming so pronounced in some communities that they are invading the secular space.
A secret directive, titled “Reinforcing and Improving Islam Work in the New Situation,” was issued last year by the State Council, the president’s Cabinet, and classified as confidential for 20 years.
It warns against the Arabization of Islamic places, fashions, and rituals in China; prohibits the use of the Islamic financial system; bars mosques or other private Islamic organizations from organizing kindergartens or after-school programs, and forbids Arabic-language schools to teach religion or send students abroad to study.
In recent years, under President Xi Jinping, China has broadened its control of culture and political opinion. China appears to be working out the most efficient and chilling methods of cultural repression in the semiautonomous region where the Muslim Uighur people live.
The Chinese fear that the religious extremism is being nurtured within the Muslim faith that could turn into open defiance. They see Islam taking advantage of the loosening of restrictions in the officially atheist country to establish a country within a country.
They’re not wrong that religious faith can be perverted into religious extremism. Islamic extremists have carried out vicious attacks here in the United States and around the world, frequently targeting innocent people. But no government has the right to crush the religious practices of innocent people even when those beliefs have been hijacked by extremists seeking to do harm.
China must learn to tolerate diversity and religious faith. Repression of religious belief and practice is contrary to basic human rights.
First Published October 29, 2019, 4:00 a.m.