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'Many Uygurs like to drink': Chinese academic defends beer festival in Muslim region

Government event in mainly Muslim area ahead of Ramadan had been criticised as 'provocative'

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Uygur ethnic women sit in front of a beer advertisement near a market in Kashgar, Xinjiang province, in 2011. Photo: Reuters

A Communist Party academic defended a government-organised beer festival in a mainly Muslim county ahead of Ramadan by saying that locals enjoyed alcohol, a state-run newspaper reported on Tuesday.

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Islam prohibits alcohol but authorities in Niya county, in the troubled Xinjiang region, held a beer drinking contest last Monday, three days before the start of Islam's holiest month, with cash prizes of up to US$160 for winners, the reported.

The county is in southern Xinjiang, the heartland of the Uygur ethnic minority, who are mostly Muslim.

Uygur rights groups say restrictions on Islam have added to ethnic tensions in the far western Muslim-majority region, where clashes have killed hundreds in recent years.

Beijing says it faces a terrorist threat in Xinjiang, with officials blaming "religious extremism" for growing violence.

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Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for exiled group the World Uygur Congress, slammed the festival as an "open provocation" to faithful Muslims.

But the cited La Disheng, professor at a Xinjiang Communist Party training school, as saying that "many Uygurs … like to drink for pleasure".

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