Village chiefs from Barin township, in Kashgar (in Chinese, Kashi) prefecture’s
Peyziwat (Jiashi) county, recently said that hundreds of
the Islamic holy books printed before 2012 had been seized since authorities
issued an order recalling them on Jan. 15.
The Qurans were appropriated as part of the "Three Illegals and One Item”
campaign underway in Xinjiang that bans "illegal” publicity materials,
religious activities, and religious teaching, as well as data-x-items deemed by
authorities to be tools of terrorism—including knives, flammable objects,
remote-controlled toys, and objects sporting symbols related to Islam, they
said.
Anti-Islamic policies
Overseas Uyghurs slammed the Quran ban as merely another bid by Chinese
authorities to exert more control over the Xinjiang region by linking their
ethnic group’s cultural traditions to terrorism and promoting more
government-friendly versions.
"The real objective of the Chinese government is to alienate Uyghur people from
the true belief of Islam,” said Turghunjan Alawudin, Religious Commission
chairman of the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC) exile group.
"China is attempting to justify its wholesale repression of the Uyghur people
by distorting the teachings of the Holy Quran, Hadith [the sayings of the
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)] and Islamic theology passed down to us by our forefathers.”
Alawudin said that Beijing is working to ensure that the "accepted” version of
the Quran legitimizes its "repressive policies” in Xinjiang and teaches the
Uyghur people to "submit.”
"In Islam, we must follow Allah and the teachings of Muhammed (PBUH), but the Chinese
government is distorting the Quran by adding passages about submission to
authorities so that Uyghurs will acquiesce to its illegitimate and dictatorial
rule over our homeland,” he said.
"China’s goal is to use the new translated Quran to confuse the minds of
believers and to serve its own political purposes.”
Alawudin denounced any version of the Quran that had been translated from the
original Arabic into the Uyghur language by "atheists or communists,” saying
only "learned Islamic scholars and true believers” are worthy of translating
the holy book, RFA reported.
WUC spokesperson Dilxat Raxit echoed Alawudin’s concerns over what constitutes
a legitimate version of the Quran.
"Only independent Islamic researchers and highly-trained religious scholars—not
the atheistic Chinese government—should have the authority to pronounce which
version of the Quran is correct,” he said.
"Instead of changing the Quran—the Holy Book of all Muslims—China should change
its anti-Islamic policies against the Uyghur people disguised as
anti-extremism.”
China regularly conducts "strike hard” campaigns in Xinjiang, including police
raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the
culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.
While China blames some Uyghurs for "terrorist" attacks, experts
outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that
repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there
that has left hundreds dead since 2009.