Police in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Area took in for questioning greater than 170 Uyghurs who attended prayer companies with out permission from authorities through the Muslim Eid al-Adha holy days, a senior police officer mentioned.
Authorities in Aykol township of Aksu metropolis (in Chinese language, Akesu) metropolis allowed solely Uyghurs over the age of 50 to take part in worship companies through the vacation on July 20-23, the officer from the district’s police station informed RFA final week.
Most of the 12 million Muslims within the XUAR celebrated Eid al-Adha, also called Qurban Heyt (in Chinese language, Gurban), with prayers, dancing and the slaughtering of goats or sheep as a spiritual sacrifice.
Authorities in quite a lot of metropolis and county facilities all through the XUAR had staged managed shows of spiritual worship to counter accusations of widespread rights abuses within the area by opening a number of long-shuttered mosques to the general public through the Eid holy days to current a semblance of normalcy.
The senior police officer in Aykol informed RFA that greater than 170 Uyghurs accused of violating rules concerning Eid prayers are presently being held in custody, although he mentioned he couldn’t touch upon their whereabouts or whether or not they have been being detained in “re-education” camps or detention facilities.
“I consider there are greater than 170 folks,” he mentioned.
“We informed older folks they may pray and younger folks they may not — these below 50,” he mentioned.
Township residents mentioned that authorities had taken “many neighbors” in for interrogations, however couldn’t present an estimate.
Authorities additionally carried out avenue patrols, raids of retailers, and residential searches as measures to regulate Uyghurs’ actions through the Muslim holy days, mentioned the police officer.
Chinese language authorities are believed to have held as much as 1.eight million Uyghurs and different Turkic-speaking minorities within the XUAR in a community of detention camps since 2017. Beijing says the camps are vocational coaching facilities geared toward combating non secular extremism within the area, although inmates are held towards their will and subjected to political indoctrination and severe human rights abuses.
Neighborhood spies
Following this yr’s Eid prayers in Aksu, police checked the identification playing cards and searched the properties of those that attended prayer companies to confirm that they have been over 50 years previous, mentioned an Aykol resident who declined to be named for security causes.
These whose IDs contained delivery date discrepancies in addition to Uyghurs that the police suspected of mendacity about their age have been hauled in to the police station for questioning, the particular person mentioned.
Native police didn’t go to the mosque themselves to analyze these attending prayer companies, and as a substitute used neighborhood spies who function the heads of models comprising 10 households every to be taught whether or not some folks had prayed secretly at dwelling, different residents mentioned.
Authorities positioned black hoods on the heads of those that have been reported on suspicion of getting prayed illegally throughout Eid and took them away, they mentioned.
Different township law enforcement officials contacted by RFA, together with these from the Gulbagh Police Station in Kuchar (Kuche) county, Aksu prefecture, declined to reply questions concerning the state of affairs.
A earlier investigation by RFA discovered that since 2017 solely people 60 years of age or older had been allowed to wish in Atush (Atushi), within the XUAR’s Kizilsu Kirghiz (Kezileisu Keerkezi) Autonomous Prefecture, and that authorities had detained violators in a camp.
“We are saying that people who find themselves very previous can pray, older males — people who find themselves older than 60. They don’t even enable younger folks to enter the mosques,” a safety officer from Suntagh village in Atush metropolis beforehand informed RFA.
“If folks break the regulation we flip them over to the village brigade,” she mentioned. “The village brigade takes them for re-education. Then we notify the household over the phone.”
Non secular restrictions for Eid al-Adha have been considerably eased in metropolis and county facilities this yr, although they continued to be strictly upheld in villages and in countryside as they’ve in earlier years, mentioned a supply conversant in the state of affairs, however who requested anonymity to have the ability to converse freely with out retaliation.
The rules have been geared toward stopping unrest and preserving stability by guaranteeing that Uyghurs didn’t create any incidents through the non secular interval, although the XUAR has not had any such protests or unrest because the starting of the mass internment marketing campaign.
In most townships all through the area, no less than one particular person from every Uyghur household stays in some type of detention, giving their relations little purpose to have a good time non secular holidays, the particular person mentioned.
In accordance with an association by China’s central authorities, varied prefectures and townships within the XUAR launched their very own rules for Eid al-Adha primarily based on native situations, the supply mentioned.
Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.