China’s Muslims face fasting ban and monitoring during Ramzan, report says

As the holy month of Ramzan begins, Muslims in China are facing a fasting ban and increasing monitoring of their cultural and religious traditions. According to a media report, Uyghurs in the northwestern region of Xinjiang are being ordered not to allow their children to fast, and authorities are conducting spot home inspections of Uyghur families.

The World Uyghur Congress spokesperson Dilshat Rishit said that during Ramzan, the authorities are requiring 1,811 villages in Xinjiang to implement a round-the-clock monitoring system. Meanwhile, China’s 11.4 million Hui Muslims, a close-knit ethnic Chinese community that has maintained its Muslim faith over centuries, is in danger of being erased entirely under the Communist Party’s draconian religious rules, warned a report from a coalition of rights groups, including the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

The Hui Muslims have been identified by Beijing as “a threat to be resolved through forcible assimilation,” the report said. This is in contrast to the relative freedom they enjoyed before President Xi Jinping launched a renewed attack on religious worship, forcing Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists alike to submit to party control and censorship of their religious lives under his “sinicisation.”

The report said that the Hui community members were able to openly participate in mosque communities, Arabic schools, and for private worship, albeit under restrictions facilitated by party liaisons. Hui entrepreneurs were encouraged to develop business and tourism connections with the wider Muslim world as part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

China has also targeted Muslim communities with its “ethnic unity” campaign, under which officials impose Han Chinese “relatives” on ethnic minority Uyghur families. These “relatives” put pressure on them to observe non-Muslim traditions, including drinking alcohol and eating pork.

The “unity” policies have taken place in Xinjiang against the backdrop of the mass incarceration of at least 1.8 million Uyghurs and other ethnic minority Muslims in “re-education” camps. There are also reports of their involvement in forced labor and systemic rape, sexual abuse, and forced sterilization of Uyghur women in the camps.

The increasing restrictions on Muslims’ religious and cultural practices in China have raised concerns among rights groups worldwide.