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Mimi Lau

The imminent closure of a 34-year-old Arabic language school in China’s northwestern province of Gansu has raised fears that draconian religion policies adopted in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region are applied to other Muslim-populated areas.
Pingliang Arabic School, a charity that caters to underprivileged students, has been told by city education officials to close by December 17 and send its 200 students and 20 teachers home.
Coalition of scholars calls for added pressure on Beijing over Uygur camps
Officials claim the school does not have the operational permits it needs although it has been in business since 1984. Pingliang is a small city on the border between Gansu and Shaanxi province – one of China’s poorest areas.
“It seems that the officials are not interested in talking to us at all,” said a teacher who requested anonymity.


In an effort to save the school from closure, teachers last week sent a petition containing more than 1,000 signatures to the education bureau.
“Our students are all from very poor families. With the language training, many of our graduates are able to find jobs such as translators for Middle Eastern traders who do business in provinces like Guangdong,” the teacher said. “If the school is closed, they could end up as dropouts on the street.”
The demise of Arabic language schools is a symptom of Beijing’s increased control of Muslim-populated regions and was urged on by a call three years ago from President Xi Jinping to “Sinicise religions”, assimilating them with traditional Chinese culture and socialist values.
The push has stoked fears that the authorities are purging influences such as Islam and Christianity, afraid that the growing popularity of such faiths would pose a threat to the Communist Party’s absolute authority.
Inside the camps where China tries to brainwash its Muslims
Muslims make up less than 2 per cent of China’s population, or about 22 million people. There are 10 predominantly Muslim ethnic groups, the largest of which is the Hui, an ethnic group closely related to the majority Han population and largely based in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region and Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan provinces.
The Uygurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims who primarily live in Xinjiang. Unlike the Uygurs, Hui Muslims have been able to enjoy greater religious freedom. While they also wear the white caps and headscarves according to Muslim traditions, they are otherwise indistinguishable in appearance from the majority Han Chinese population.


The restive Xinjiang has exercised tight controls over the Uygurs keeping close tabs on their overseas contacts and visitors, and monitoring their daily lives. A United Nations human rights panel recently claimed that the region was holding up to more than 1 million Uygurs and other Muslims in internment camps.
However, officials in other Muslim-populated regions have looked to Xinjiang as an example.
Zhang Yunsheng, party secretary in charge of political and legal affairs in Ningxia, was quoted by the local media as saying the region should learn from the Xinjiang model in curbing “religious extremism and terrorism” – China’s code for anti-government activities.
“We should draw experiences from the good practices and measures of Xinjiang,” he said after visiting the neighbouring province.

According to official Ningxia Daily, Zhang learned how law enforcement authorities in Xinjiang “operate an integrated social management platform and police data centres in maintaining social stability”.
A former State Council official familiar with ethnic policies said that he expected exchanges among officials between Xinjiang and Ningxia would increase soon.
“Ningxia would be most likely to adopt similar extreme [control] standards over Hui Muslims. Practices such as the wearing of headscarves and big beards, for example, could be prohibited,” he said.
China’s Hui Muslims fear education ban signals religious crackdown
A visit to Ningxia by the Post in April found that Islamic imagery and Arabic street signs had been removed from across towns and counties. Some mosques have been ordered to cancel public Arabic classes, while a number of private Arabic schools have been told to close.
A Hui Arabic teacher said that the crackdown on Islamic culture had increased.
China ‘will retaliate’ if US sanctions it over Xinjiang human rights
“There are fewer uses of Arabic in road signs, names of products and restaurant food menus. Some food products have even dropped the word halal – an Arabic word meaning permissible under the Muslim law – translated in Chinese from their packing,” he said.
In August, Ningxia authority’s plan to demolish the Weizhou Grand Mosque in Tongxin was halted after it met with a rare protest by hundreds of Hui Muslims.

An Ran, a Chinese poet of Hui ethnicity, criticised Chinese authorities for introducing the extreme social control measures used in Xinjiang to other parts of China.
“To replicate Xinjiang’s practices in other provinces is essentially turning a regional catastrophe to a national one,” he said.
An also worried that the extreme measures could be extended to other social, religious and ethnic groups that are deemed destabilising by the authorities.


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Religion in China

Chinese Arabic school to close as areas with Muslim populations are urged to study the Xinjiang way

Pingliang Arabic School in Gansu hosts its autumn semester opening ceremony, but the school will not survive beyond the end of December if authorities have their way. Photo: Handout.

(FILES) This file photo taken on June 26, 2017 shows police (R) patrolling as Muslims leave the Id Kah Mosque after morning prayer during Eid al-Fitr in Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. China's construction of a vast, all-seeing police state in its fractious far west has triggered a government spending spree worth billions to firms providing a hi-tech network of cameras and "re-education centres". The surveillance machine in Xinjiang region has grown exponentially in recent years, used by the ruling Communist Party to guard against what it considers Islamic extremism and separatism in the region. / AFP PHOTO / JOHANNES EISELE / TO GO WITH: CHINA-SECURITY-RIGHTS; Focus by Ben DOOLEY

A pictured from internet shows muslims from the ethnic Hui group are pictured near the Weizhou Grand Mosque on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Weizhou county, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Local authorities have been pushed to delay plans to demolish the new Weizhou Grand Mosque after a rare protest by hundreds of Muslims from the ethnic Hui group on Thursday. ?Handout)

Inside the camps where China tries to brainwash Muslims until they love the party and hate their own culture

Omir Bekali holds up a mobile phone showing a photo of his parents whom he believes have been detained in China’s western Xinjiang region. Photo: AP

Uighurs and their supporters march to the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations in New York, Thursday, March 15, 2018. Members of the Uighur Muslim ethnic group held demonstrations in cities around the world on Thursday to protest a sweeping Chinese surveillance and security campaign that has sent thousands of their people into detention and political indoctrination centers. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

epa06705982 (16/20) An ethnic Uighur woman looks out from a bus window in Urumqi city, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Province, China, 18 November 2017. Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority group in China, make up about 40 percent of the 21.8 million people in Xinjiang, a vast, ethnically divided region that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. Xinjiang has long been subjected to separatists unrests and violent terrorist attacks blamed by authorities on Islamist extremism while human rights groups say Chinese repression on religious rights, culture and freedom of movement caused undue tensions. Life however goes on under the watchful eye of the government for the ethnic Uighurs living in the city of Urumqi and surrounding areas. EPA-EFE/HOW HWEE YOUNG ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa06705966

epa06705984 (18/20) Ethnic Uighur minority people walk in Dabazha or Grand Bazaar in Urumqi city, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Province, China, 18 November 2017. Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority group in China, make up about 40 percent of the 21.8 million people in Xinjiang, a vast, ethnically divided region that borders Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Mongolia. Xinjiang has long been subjected to separatists unrests and violent terrorist attacks blamed by authorities on Islamist extremism while human rights groups say Chinese repression on religious rights, culture and freedom of movement caused undue tensions. Life however goes on under the watchful eye of the government for the ethnic Uighurs living in the city of Urumqi and surrounding areas. EPA-EFE/HOW HWEE YOUNG ATTENTION: For the full PHOTO ESSAY text please see Advisory Notice epa06705966

In this Nov. 5, 2017, photo, a residents watch a convoy of security personnel and armored vehicles in a show of force through central Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region. Authorities are using detentions in political indoctrination centers and data-driven surveillance to impose a digital police state in the region of Xinjiang and its Uighurs, a 10-million strong, Turkic-speaking Muslim minority Beijing fears could be influenced by extremism. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

This picture taken on June 26, 2017 shows police patrolling as Muslims leave the Id Kah Mosque after the morning prayer on Eid al-Fitr in the old town of Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. The increasingly strict curbs imposed on the mostly Muslim Uighur population have stifled life in the tense Xinjiang region, where beards are partially banned and no one is allowed to pray in public. Beijing says the restrictions and heavy police presence seek to control the spread of Islamic extremism and separatist movements, but analysts warn that Xinjiang is becoming an open air prison. / AFP PHOTO / Johannes EISELE / TO GO WITH China-religion-politics, FOCUS by Ben Dooley

FILE - In this Nov. 3, 2017 file photo, armed civilians patrol the area outside the Hotan Bazaar where a screen shows Chinese President Xi Jinping in Hotan in western China's Xinjiang region. A senior U.S. official says the United States would pursue sanctions on Chinese officials involved in a security crackdown in the region of Xinjiang if they were appropriate for designation under a new law targeting human rights offenders. Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Laura Stone said Wednesday, April 18, 2018, that the United States was deeply concerned about China's detention of at least "tens of thousands" of ethnic Uighurs and other Muslims and could take action under the Global Magnitsky Act. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

News

China

Politics

Teacher in Gansu says authorities are denying underprivileged an education
Ningxia political chief says Xinjiang’s ‘religious and terrorist’ curbs are good model


Gansu language school closure is symptom of Chinese policy towards Muslims.


Xinjiang

Human rights in China

Chinese Arabic school to close as areas with Muslim populations are urged to study the Xinjiang way

Teacher in Gansu says authorities are denying underprivileged an education Ningxia political chief says Xinjiang’s ‘religious and terrorist’ curbs are good model

Teacher in Gansu says authorities are denying underprivileged an education

Ningxia political chief says Xinjiang’s ‘religious and terrorist’ curbs are good model