China's Uighur Muslims struggle under 'police state'

Agencies
July 13, 2017

Kashgar, Jul 13: Worshippers quietly passed through metal detectors as they entered the central mosque in China's far western city of Kashgar under the stern gaze of stone- faced police officers.

uighurs

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.

For years, the square outside the mosque in Kashgar was packed with teeming crowds as worshippers jostled for space to unroll their prayer rugs and celebrate the end of Ramadan. But no longer.

This year, an eerie silence hung over the plaza outside the imposing prayer hall as devotees gathered to mark the end of a month of fasting -- the lowest turnout in a generation according to residents.

Authorities declined to comment on the numbers. But local businessmen told AFP the government had used the multiple checkpoints encircling the city to prevent travellers to Kashgar from joining Eid prayers.

"This is not a good place for religion," said one trader.

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.

China is "essentially creating a police state of unprecedented scale," said James Leibold, an expert on Chinese security at Australia's La Trobe University.

The government began ramping up security and religious restrictions in Xinjiang in 2009, following a series of riots in the regional capital Urumqi that left around 200 dead.

In March, President Xi Jinping ordered security forces to build a "great wall of steel" around the region after Uighurs claiming to belong to a division of the Islamic State group in Iraq threatened to return home and "shed blood like rivers".

Over the last year, Beijing has flooded Xinjiang with tens of thousands of security personnel, placed police stations on nearly every block, and rolled out tough regulations aimed at "eliminating extremism".

Public signs say no one is permitted to pray in public or grow a beard before the age of 50, while government employees are forbidden from fasting during Ramadan.

In Tashkurgan, near the Pakistan border, authorities shut a halal restaurant as "punishment" for refusing to serve food during the holiday, according to a shopkeeper working next door.

A teacher and a government official told AFP that schools discourage students from using the traditional Arabic Muslim greeting "As-Salaam Alaikum" ("peace be upon you").

"The government thinks this Islamic word is equal to separatism," the official said.

The region's ubiquitous surveillance cameras are particularly abundant in places of worship: an empty mosque in the southern city of Yarkand had three of them pointing directly at the spot where the imam leads prayers. Even more hung from the wooden rafters like bats.

Comments

Ranjan shetty
 - 
Sunday, 16 Jul 2017

where is the news , in which muslims kidnapped 13 years old dalit gal ,converted and performed Nikhanama and now she is 3 weeks pregnant and she was gang raped .it happened in Delhi .beauty of Jihadists .

MBS
 - 
Sunday, 16 Jul 2017

It means 70 lac new anti social & anti national force will be ready in 5 years
35 lac Go Rakshak
35 lac Anti Romeo

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News Network
April 2,2020

Washington, Apr 2: The total US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 4,000 early Wednesday, more than double the number from three days earlier, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The number of deaths was 4,076 -- more than twice the 2,010 recorded late Saturday.

More than 40 percent of recorded deaths nationally were in New York state, the Johns Hopkins data showed.

On Tuesday the United States exceeded the number of deaths in China, where the pandemic emerged in December before spreading worldwide.

The number of confirmed US cases has reached 189,510, the most in the world, though Italy and Spain have recorded more fatalities.

After initially downplaying the threat from new coronavirus in the early stages of the US outbreak, President Donald Trump warned of "a very, very painful two weeks" to come for the country on Tuesday.

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News Network
May 21,2020

Washington, May 21: US President Donald Trump China is on a "massive disinformation" campaign and is desperately trying to deflect the "pain and carnage" that it spread throughout the world, US President Donald Trump has said, upping the ante on Beijing over its handling of the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump, who has expressed disappointment over China's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, claimed that it was the "incompetence" of Beijing that led to the mass killing across the globe. 

"China is on a massive disinformation campaign because they are desperate to have Sleepy Joe Biden win the presidential race so they can continue to rip-off the United States, as they have done for decades, until I came along!" Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday.

"Spokesman speaks stupidly on behalf of China, trying desperately to deflect the pain and carnage that their country spread throughout the world. Its disinformation and propaganda attack on the United States and Europe is a disgrace… It all comes from the top. They could have easily stopped the plague, but they didn't," he said in a series of tweets.

Trump blamed China for spreading the coronavirus globally and accused it of being incompetent.
"Some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people. Please explain to this dope that it was the 'incompetence of China', and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!" Trump said.

China has denied covering up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and accused the US of attempting to divert public attention by insinuating that the virus originated from a virology laboratory in Wuhan.

"China was the first country to report the COVID-19 to the World Health Organisation (WHO), (and) that doesn't mean the virus originated from Wuhan... There has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said last month.

"A discerning person will understand at a glance that the purpose is to create confusion, divert public attention, and shirk their responsibility," he said.

The novel coronavirus which first originated in Wuhan in December last year has claimed 328,120 lives and infected nearly 5 million people globally. The Us is the worst affected country with 93,439 deaths and over 1.5 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Meanwhile, the US Senate passed a bill boosting oversight of companies based in China and other nations that could lead to their removal from American stock exchanges.

The Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act, proposes to increase oversight of Chinese and other foreign companies listed on American exchanges and delist and ban over-the-counter trading for firms that are out of compliance with US regulators for a period of three years.

In a related development, a group of top Republican Senators led by Marco Rubio sent a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin following disturbing reports that China's state-owned and-directed enterprises were looking to exploit the economic crisis by buying US and foreign companies.

As companies backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) approach banks to identify the purchase of companies in the US and in Europe affected by the pandemic, the senators urged Mnuchin to protect against the China's and the CCP's predatory economic behaviour during the COVID-19 crisis.

"We write to express our concerns related to the People's Republic of China's (PRC) efforts to exploit the economic crisis wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic to gain control of distressed companies or shirking its international responsibilities amidst a worldwide crisis.

"In both Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and PRC policy documents, Beijing has made no secret of its intentions to dominate strategic industrial and emerging technology sectors as well as influence standards at the expense of liberal, rules-based governance," wrote the senators.

As the crisis reverberates across the globe, the PRC's predatory lending practices — including the use of non-disclosure agreements for bilateral loans — not only damage the fiscal situation of recipient countries but also undermine the international community's ability to respond effectively to the crisis, they said.

"Without US and international pressure for accountability and transparency, those countries that are in debt to the PRC will not have the political cover or protection to open their financial books. Such countries will face the risk of default or a currency crisis, leaving the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Western countries to clean up the PRC's mess," the senators said.

During a campaign round table Katrina Pierson, Senior Advisor to the Trump 2020 Campaign, said that only the US President will defeat the coronavirus, hold China accountable for their negligence, and defend the American people from socialism. 

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News Network
January 3,2020

Islamabad, Jan 3: The United Arab Emirates has extended USD 200 million aid to Pakistan for the development of the small and medium-sized enterprises in the country, Finance Adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan said.

The announcement came after Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan concluded his one-day visit to the country on Thursday.

"The money will be spent on small business promotion and jobs. This support is testimony to the expanding economic relations and friendship between our countries," the adviser, Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, on Thursday said.

The Crown Prince directed the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development to allocate USD 200 million in order to assist the Pakistani government's efforts to create a stable and balanced national economy that will help achieve the country's sustainable development, Dawn News reported on Friday.

During the visit, the prince met Prime Minister Khan and held talks on bilateral, regional and international issues.

The UAE is Pakistan's largest trading partner in the Middle East and a major source of investments. The UAE is also among Pakistan's prime development partners in education, health and energy sectors.

It hosts more than 1.6 million expatriate Pakistani community, which contributes remittances of around USD 4.5 billion annually to the GDP.

This is the Crown Prince's second visit to Pakistan since Khan took office in August 2018. He had last visited Pakistan on January 6 last year, just weeks after his country offered USD 3 billion financial assistance to Pakistan to deal with its balance of payment crisis.

The Crown Prince's visit was considered by experts as an attempt to woo Pakistan against the backdrop of recent developments when Saudi Arabia and UAE apparently used pressure to stop Pakistan from attending the Kuala Lumpur summit held last month.

The summit from December 19-21 was seen by Saudis as an attempt to create a new bloc in the Muslim world that could become an alternative to the dysfunctional Organisation of Islamic Cooperation led by the Gulf Kingdom.

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