China sekat minoriti daripada berpuasa

BEIJING, 6 Jun – China telah menandakan permulaan Ramadan dengan tegahan lazimnya ke atas kakitangan awam, para pelajar dan kanak-kanak di rantau Islam itu daripada ikut serta berpuasa, menurut laman web kerajaan ketika bulan suci bermula hari ini.

Parti pemerintah Komunis China berfahaman ateis dan selama bertahun-tahun telah menegah kakitangan kerajaan dan kanak-kanak daripada berpuasa di Xinjiang, rumah kepada lebih 10 juta puak minoriti Islam Uighur. Ia juga mengarahkan restoran-restoran untuk beroperasi seperti biasa.

Rantau itu sering melihat pertempuran biasa antara puak Uighur dan pasukan keselamatan kerajaan, dan Beijing telah menyalahkan serangan maut di sana dan tempat lain di China ke atas militan yang mencari kebebasan bagi rantau sumber kaya itu.

Kumpulan hak asasi kemanusiaan menyalahkan ketegangan ke atas pengehadan beragama dan budaya yang dikenakan terhadap Uighur dan minoriti Islam lain di kawasan luas terbentang, yang bersempadan dengan Asia Tengah.

Beberapa jabatan kerajaan di Xinjiang menyiarkan makluman dalam laman web mereka pada minggu lalu mengarahkan penyekatan berpuasa semasa Ramadan.

“Anggota parti, kader, kakitangan awam, para pelajar dan kanak-kanak tidak perlu berpuasa pada Ramadan dan tidak mengambil bahagian dalam kegiatan keagamaan,” menurut notis yang disiarkan pada Khamis pada laman web bandar Korla, tengah Xinjiang.

“Semasa bulan Ramadan, perniagaan makanan dan minuman tidak akan ditutup,” tambahnya. – AFP


Sumber - Media Permata

Mapim kecam China haram umat Islam puasa Ramadhan

Majlis Perundingan Pertubuhan Islam Malaysia (Mapim) mengecam sekeras-kerasnya tindakan kerajaan China yang telah mengisytiharkan pengumuman mengharamkan berpuasa pada bulan Ramadhan bagi kakitangan awam, pelajar dan guru di negeri Xinjiang iaitu negeri bahagiannya yang mempunyai populasi terbesar Muslim Uighur.

Keputusan itu samasekali tidak boleh diterima dan ia adalah suatu penindasan yang mesti dibantah bukan sahaja oleh setiap warga umat Islam, malah juga oleh komuniti dunia seluruhnya atas dasar hak dan kebebasan beragama.

Pengharaman itu dikuatkuasakan oleh kerajaan parti komunis China yang secara rasminya adalah kerajaan ateis yang mengarahkan semua restoran dibuka sepanjang Ramadhan seperti Notis yang dinaikmuat dalam sesawang Administrasi Makanan dan Ubatan China.

Dalam pengumuman yang dikeluarkan di daerah Bole dimaklumkan: "Dalam bulan Ramadhan dilarang berpuasa dan melakukan sebarang upacara agama".

Nampaknya setiap tahun pihak berkuasa China mengharamkan berpuasa dalam kalangan Muslim Uighur.

Akibatnya ketegangan etnik sering tercetus yang menyebabkan ratusan terbunuh dalam beberapa tahun yang lalu.

Meskipun kebebasan agama telah dikembangkan di China sejak dasar terbukanya pada 1979, namun ia sangat terbatas. Perlembagaan negara China memberi kebebasan terhadap kepercayaan agama, namun ia masih menghadkan aktiviti agama dan organisasi agama.

China mengiktiraf 5 agama - Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism dan Protestantism dengan mensyaratkan semua aktiviti agama dilakukan di bawah naungan badan agama yang setia kepada negara (patriotic religious association).

Di kawasan autonomi Xinjiang Uighur, umat Islam telah menghadapi keganasan pada 2008 dan 2009. Pada 2014, kerajaan China mengharamkan semua aktiviti agama pada bulan Ramadhan.

Pihak berkuasa telah menuduh ia kononnya adalah akibat dari "ancaman teroris" dan "ekstrimis agama".

Jelas kerajaan China bermatlamat untuk memaksa Muslim Uighur memisahkan diri dari amalan agama mereka. Polisi ini akan memprovokasi ketengangan antara etnik dan mencetuskan konflik.

Tahun sebelum ini pelajar sekolah termasuk dalam arahan larangan berpuasa dan pelbagai amalan agama. Biro pendidikan kota Tarbaghatay mengarahkan semua sekolah dihubungi dan memberitahu pelajar arahan tersebut bahawa semasa Ramadhan pelajar etnik minoriti Uighur Muslim tidak dibenarkan berpuasa, tidak dibenar memasuki masjid dan tidak dibenarkan mengamalkan aktiviti agama.

Malah pemantauan lebih rapi akan dilakukan sepanjang bulan Ramadhan atas nama menjaga "kestabilan sosial".

Malah sebelum Ramadhan lagi, pengurusan masjid diarah menyiasat kad pengenalan setiap orang yang datang menunaikan ibadat di masjid.

Kami membantah keras penindasan yang nampaknya berterusan dilakukan oleh kerajaan komunis ke atas umat Islam.

Kami menuntut PBB bertindak tegas keatas kerajaan China yang menafikan hak agama kepada mereka yang sudah berpegang kepada agama yang dipilih. Memaksa mereka meninggalkan amalan agama yang mereka pilih adalah suatu kezaliman yang tidak boleh dibiarkan.

Kerajaan Malaysia perlu mengambil inisiatif supaya OIC melakukan sesuatu bagi berunding dengan kerajaan China supaya hak mengamalkan Islam dalam kalangan umat Islam berbangsa Uighur perlu dihormati.

Kami menggesa kerajaan Malaysia menghantar nota bantahan kepada Kedutaan China di Kuala Lumpur supaya pendirian Malaysia sebagai negara umat Islam disampaikan kepada pihak berkuasa China jika hubungan baik dua hala antara dua negara ini hendak diteruskan.


Sumber - Harakahdaily

‘At Least 2,000 Uyghurs Killed’ in Yarkand Violence: Exile Leader

An exile Uyghur leader has claimed that at least 2,000 ethnic minority Uyghurs may have been killed by Chinese security forces following riots last week in a restive county in China’s western Xinjiang region, far more than reported by the state media.

Citing “evidence” from the ground, Rebiya Kadeer, president of the Germany-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), accused the Chinese authorities of a cover up of what she called a “massacre” of Uyghurs in Yarkand (in Chinese, Shache) county in Xinjiang’s Kashgar prefecture on July 28.

Chinese state media had at first said “dozens” of people were killed but revised upwards the death toll to 96 this week, saying the riots erupted after a “gang” of Uyghurs attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkand’s Elishku township and that the authorities reacted with “a resolute crackdown to eradicate terrorists.”

But Kadeer told RFA’s Uyghur Service that information the WUC received from the area was “absolutely different than the accounts provided by Chinese official narrative.”

“We have evidence in hand that at least 2,000 Uyghurs in the neighborhood of Elishku township have been killed by Chinese security forces on the first day [of the incident] and they ‘cleaned up’ the dead bodies on the second and third day during a curfew that was imposed,” she said.

“We have recorded voice messages from the people in the neighborhood and written testimonies on exactly what had taken place in Elishku township of Yarkand county during this massacre,” she said, adding that the victims were mainly from villages No. 14, 15 and 16 in the township.

“We can share these facts without releasing the source of the information as their security and safety is at risk,” said Kadeer, who has been in exile in Washington since being released from a Chinese prison in 2005.

Highest death toll in Xinjiang

Kadeer said the death toll in Yarkand was the highest reported in Xinjiang violence, surpassing the 200 killed in rioting in the regional capital Urumqi in 2009 involving the mostly Muslim Uyghurs and members of China's Han majority.

“It is clearly state terrorism and a crime against humanity by any standard committed by Chinese security forces against the unarmed Uyghur population,” she charged.

Kadeer’s claim could not be independently verified but interviews with Uyghur and Han residents in Yarkand and the Silk Road city of Kashgar by RFA’s Uyghur and Mandarin Services indicated that the death toll was much higher than that reported by the state media, with one Han Chinese resident saying it could be “more than 1,000.”

Kadeer said that the riots were triggered by a march by a group of Uyghurs to the police station and government offices to seek justice “for the killing of innocent villagers,” including the shooting death of a family of five by police over a dispute about wearing traditional headscarves.

She claimed the police gunned down nearly all the protesters and went on to kill others in a house-to-house search.

“As usual Chinese security forces have regarded this mass gathering of Uyghurs as a crime and that they should be silenced, and started to shoot at them without even listening to their concerns,” Kadeer said.

Uyghurs attacked with sticks

She said that some Uyghurs, armed with sticks, attacked government vehicles and government employees in protest against the violence by the security forces.

“Chinese military forces immediately called for [reinforcements] and started to shoot and kill all the participants of the march and other villagers during house-to-house searches.”

The authorities had sealed off the affected area, which has been surrounded by heavily armed security forces, she said, adding that the July 28 bloody incident had been overshadowed by the Israeli military offensive in Gaza which had grabbed headlines in recent weeks.

“At least 2,000 innocent Uyghurs in three villages of Yarkand county have been brutally killed by Chinese security forces without even condemnation from the outside world,” Kadeer said.

In the violence-hit Elishku township, a Uyghur shop owner told RFA that “some streets have been almost deserted because many people have died,” citing accounts by his customers who had heard “continuous gunfire and cries for help.”

Ambulance sirens

A resident of one of the three villages gripped by the violence in Elishku township said she heard ambulance sirens sounding throughout the day on Aug. 2, five days after the riots.

When asked about casualties, a doctor at Yarkand People’s Hospital, Mihrigul Awut, said, “Sorry, I cannot answer any questions about the injuries from the incident.”

However, local Han Chinese residents of Yarkand county and the Silk Road city of Kashgar said the ruling Chinese Communist Party was trying to "cover up" the extent of the violence, and had greatly underreported the number of deaths.

A Han Chinese businesswoman from Kashgar, which administers Yarkand, said that more than 1,000 people, including Hans and Uyghurs, could have died from the violence which she charged was caused by armed Uyghurs.

"If you add up our own [Han casualties] with the gangsters, including those of us who died for no reason, it's more than 1,000," she told RFA’s Mandarin Service.

"It’s because a lot of the East Turkestanis … attacked people with great, big chopping knives," she said, referring to the Uyghurs. “It's a bit like Iraq over here.”

"Some of them were local Uyghurs from around here, while some were from overseas," the businesswoman said, adding, "We have five border crossings to Pakistan around here."

Many Uyghurs refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan, as the region had come under Chinese control following two short-lived East Turkestan republics in the 1930s and 1940s.

'Premeditated' attack

The official Xinhua news agency had said that of the official death toll of 96, 35 of the dead civilians were Han Chinese, while two were Uyghurs and others were “terrorists.”

The news agency cited the government as saying investigations showed the attack was "organized and premeditated,” and "in connection with the terrorist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).”

Chinese authorities have blamed ETIM and “separatists” from Xinjiang for a series of attacks which have expanded in scale and sophistication over the last year, including a May 22 bombing in Urumqi, which killed 39 people and injured 90, and which prompted the launch of an anti-terror campaign across the region.


Sumber - Radio Free Asia

China larang berpuasa

Pihak berkuasa menyekat kebebasan bersuara penduduk
Islam Uighur menyebabkan mereka mengadakan protes

BEIJING - CHINA. China melarang kakitangan awam, guru dan pelajar di wilayah Xinjiang berpuasa, menurut laman web kerajaan, semalam.

Beberapa jabatan kerajaan turut memuat naik notis terbabit sejak bermulanya Ramadan akhir minggu lalu.

Stesen radio Bozhou dan University TV menyatakan mereka akan menguatkuasakan larangan tersebut dalam kalangan anggota parti, guru dan golongan remaja di wilayah bergolak tersebut.

Dalam satu kenyataan, jurucakap Kongres Dunia Uighur, Dilxat Raxit menyelar tindakan itu sebagai menyekat kebebasan beragama.

"Larangan menyekat orang Islam melaksanakan Rukun Islam itu hanya akan mencetuskan lebih banyak konflik di Xinjiang.

"Kami menggesa kerajaan menghentikan penindasan seumpama ini terutamanya ketika Ramadan," tegasnya.

Memetik laporan AFP, sejak beberapa tahun lalu, kerajaan pimpinan Parti Komunis mengenakan larangan berpuasa di Xinjiang yang didiami etnik minoriti Uighur.


Sumber - Sinar Harian


China Bans Ramadan Fast in Muslim Northwest

Students and civil servants in China's Muslim northwest, where Beijing is enforcing a security crackdown following deadly unrest, have been ordered to avoid taking part in traditional fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Statements posted in the past several days on websites of schools, government agencies and local party organizations in the Xinjiang region said the ban was aimed at protecting students' wellbeing and preventing use of schools and government offices to promote religion. Statements on the websites of local party organizations said members of the officially atheist ruling party also should avoid fasting.

"No teacher can participate in religious activities, instill religious thoughts in students or coerce students into religious activities," said a statement on the website of the No. 3 Grade School in Ruoqiang County in Xinjiang.

Similar bans have been imposed in the past on fasting for Ramadan, which began at sundown Saturday. But this year is unusually sensitive because Xinjiang is under tight security following attacks that the government blames on Muslim extremists with foreign terrorist ties.

Violence has escalated in recent years in Xinjiang. The ruling party blames violent extremists that it says want independence, while members of the region's Uighur ethnic group complain that discrimination and restrictions on religion, such as a ban on taking children to mosques, are fueling anger at the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

An attack on May 22 in the regional capital of Urumqi by four people who threw bombs in a vegetable market killed 43 people, including the attackers. On June 22, police in Kashgar in the far west said they killed 13 assailants who drove into a police building and set off explosives, injuring three officers. Authorities have blamed two other attacks at train stations in Urumqi and in China's southwest on Muslim extremists.

The government responded with a crackdown that resulted in more than 380 arrests in one month and public rallies to announce sentences.

The ruling party is wary of religious activities it worries might serve as a rallying point for opposition to one-party rule. Controls on worship are especially sensitive in Xinjiang and in neighboring Tibet, where religious faith plays a large role in local cultures.

On Tuesday, authorities in some communities in Xinjiang held celebrations of the anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party and served food to test whether Muslim guests were fasting, according to Dilxat Raxit, spokesman in Germany for the rights group World Uyghur Congress.

"This will lead to more conflicts if China uses coercive measures to rule and to challenge Uighur beliefs," said Dilxat Raxit in an email.

The ruling party says religion and education should be kept separate and students should not be subject to religious influences. That rule is rarely enforced for children of Han Chinese, who, if they have a religion, are mostly Buddhist, Daoist or Christian.

"Students shall not participate in religious activities; they shall not study scripts or read poems at script and choir classes; they shall not wear any religious emblems; and no parent or others can force students to have religious beliefs or partake in religious activities," said the statement on the website of the grade school in Ruoqiang County.

A news portal run by the government of Yili in the northern reaches of Xinjiang said fasting is detrimental to the physical wellbeing of young students, who should eat regularly.

In the city of Bole, retired teachers from the Wutubulage Middle School were called in to stand guard at mosques and prevent students from entering, according to a statement on the municipal party committee website.

Also in Bole, the Bozhou University of Radio and Television said on its website it held a meeting with working and retired minority teachers on the first day of the Ramadan to remind them of the fasting ban.

The forestry bureau in Xinjiang's Zhaosu county held an event the day before Ramadan at which party cadres signed a pledge they and their relatives would "firmly resist fasting," according to a statement on the website of the local party committee.

The Moyu Weather Bureau in the Hotan area said on its website that Muslim employees, both active and retired, were required to sign a letter promising not to fast.

The commercial bureau for Turpan, an oasis town in the Taklamakan Desert, said in a statement that civil servants are "strictly forbidden" to fast or perform the Salat prayer ritual in a mosque.


Sumber - ABC News