By UMAR AbdurRahman
Muslims around the world have commenced Fasting the month of Ramadan in anticipation of great rewards, foremost is entry into Jannah (paradise). Even Muslims in war-torn countries welcome it with tremendous joy and make do with their conditions to spend it in the most spiritual and meaningful way possible. The month gives them an opportunity to renew their faith through various activities like fasting, prayers, Qur’an recitations, alms-giving and feeding and helping those in need. This spiritual renewal heals their pain and sorrow and gives them hope about their future.
Unfortunately, that is not the situation of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims of East Turkestan, the Uyghur and Turkic homeland named Xinjiang by China. Full Ramadan ban has been imposed on them, they are forced to eat and drink during the day, alcohol and pork inclusive. This is the third consecutive year in the region amid a massive internment of its Muslims and ferocious ethnic and religious cleansing drive being perpetrated with impunity by the Chinese government with support of Heads of Muslim Nations, foremost is the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad bin Salman during his visit to China earlier this year and statements from Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan among others.
China’s ruling Communist party is officially an atheist have restricted Muslims from practicing Islam in Xinjiang for several years. Xinjiang region remains home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
Food and Drug Administration in Xinjiang’s Jinghe county potressed the fact by posting the following statement on their website
“Food service workplaces will operate normal hours during Ramadan,”
“During Ramadan do not engage in fasting, vigils or other religious activities,”
Uyghur Activist, Alip Erkin shares his story on Uyghur bulletin as follows:
"Even though there had been long established Ramadan restrictions for state employees and students at all levels of education, at least self-employed business people, handicraftsmen and farmers could fast with certain bearable prohibitions, such as not being allowed to play Qur’an recitations out loud, to gather for religious discussions or to let children under 18 years old join the fasting and other religious activities. Restaurants run by Uyghurs and other Muslims would be ordered by the authorities to stay open throughout Ramadans.
I remember groping in the dark mornings of Ramadan for my ready-made Sahur (meal eaten before fasting starts at dawn) in my dormitory when I was a student of Xinjiang University in the early 2000s. We couldn’t turn on the light for fear of being spotted by the University Protection Group (护校队), a campus patrol unit formed of fellow students and directed by the police station of the university. If we are caught eating Sahur for fasting or praying at any time of day, that would effectively spell the end of our university life. We would only rely on the moon light coming through the window during Sahur and morning prayers.
Those restrictions were largely unknown to the outside world then. Only since 2014 has international media started to cover the Ramadan and other religious restrictions more widely as deliberate serving of lunch to state employees in their workplaces and students in their schools to make sure they don’t fast had been intensified as a result of China’s ‘People’s War on Terror’ declared in the same year.
However, a full-scale ban of religious practices has been mercilessly imposed on the Muslims of East Turkestan and a systematic forced assimilation campaign has been waged since Chen Quanguo was transferred from Tibet to the Uyghur homeland as party secretary in August 2016 in parallel with the carpet detention primarily of Uyghurs and Kazakhs for their religion and ethnicity aimed at concentrated brainwashing and intimidation. Since then, all religious rituals, including the basic tenets of Islam such as praying (salah), fasting during Ramadan, reading the Qur’an, Islamic marriage ceremony of Nikah, funeral prayer of Janazah etc, have been completely banned and enforced by Han Chinese cadres staying in Uyghur homes as government-designated ‘relatives’ and those paying door-to-door surprise visits.
Apart from living in a totalitarian security state aided by high-tech mass surveillance and grid-style police checkpoints, those outside of the camps have also been deprived of their basic freedom of inter-city and even inter-neighbourhood movement. They are frequently warned with being sent to the camps by the officials not to engage in any religious activities and not to even use such daily words and phrases as “Assalamu Alaykum,” “Insha’Allah,” “Alhamduli’Allah,” “Masha’Allah” in endless neighbourhood propaganda sessions.
Even more abhorrently, thousands of mosques have been systematically demolished or closed for prayers with their minarets removed or turned into bars and other facilities. They include major mosques of long historical significance such as Kèriye’s Hèytgah Mosque and Qarghiliq’s Jame Mosque in Hotan and Kashgar prefectures respectively which had hundreds of years of history and even managed to survive Cultural Revolution."
Indeed, this is beyond 'war on terror' as parroted by offices of the UN, US and allies of China including those of the Arab states except if they are terrified by Islām which indeed they are, for when the system of Islam is established, it cleanses Men off servitude to other Men but to the Creator of Men and from the injustices of worldly systems to the justice of Islām. And this is their greatest fear and terified they are altogether.