MINELRES: F18News Summary: China; Georgia; Slovenia;

[Forum 18]

FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
http://www.forum18.org/

The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief

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23 September 2003
CHINA: XINJIANG RELIGIOUS FREEDOM SURVEY, SEPTEMBER 2003
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=143
In its survey analysis of the religious freedom situation in the
Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of north-western China (previously known
as Eastern Turkestan), Forum 18 News Service reports on the pervasive state
control over the religious life of native Muslims, who make up about half
the local population. Mosques are strictly controlled by the authorities
and all the imam-hatybs are state-appointed. Posters on mosques declare
that children under 18 cannot attend, while an unofficial order bans
employees of state-run companies from attending under threat of dismissal.
Only approved religious literature can be sold. Despite Xinjiang's
impressive recent economic growth, Forum 18 found that tension between
local Muslims and the Chinese government has not been relieved.
* See full article below. *


25 September 2003
GEORGIA: CATHOLICS FAIL TO BREAK ORTHODOX MONOPOLY
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=144
The Catholic Church failed in its bid to become the second religious
community to gain legal status when the government abruptly cancelled plans
to sign an agreement with the Vatican on 19 September. Catholic officials
stressed that the Church needs the agreement. "For the past decade they
kept saying a law on religion would be adopted which would grant such
recognition, but it never happened," a Catholic official told Forum 18 News
Service from Tbilisi. "That's the reason for the agreement." The
government's change of mind followed complaints from the Orthodox patriarch
and street protests. "These demonstrations were organised by the Orthodox
Church, which stirred up the students by telling them the agreement was
part of a plot by European and Masonic agents," Orthodox priest Fr Basile
Kobakhidze told Forum 18.


25 September 2003
GEORGIA: WILL NON-ORTHODOX FAITHS EVER GET LEGAL STATUS?
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=145
The lack of legal status for non-Orthodox religious communities has led to
difficulties carrying out their activities, especially over building and
opening new places of worship, minority religious leaders have complained
to Forum 18 News Service. "Of course this is not right," declared
Pentecostal Bishop Oleg Khubashvili. "There is no religion law so there is
no legal status. We want legal recognition as a Church." True Orthodox
priest Fr Gela Aroshvili believes the Orthodox Patriarchate will never
allow other religious communities equal rights. "When the Patriarchate got
its concordat it became a monopolist and was able to obstruct everyone
else," he told Forum 18. But Metropolitan Daniil (Datuashvili) of the
Patriarchate rejected suggestions that his Church opposes legal status for
other faiths. "On the contrary, the Orthodox Church wants all of them to
get legal status as religious organisations."


22 September 2003
SLOVENIA: NEW RELIGION BILL WILL BE NEUTRAL, DRAFTER INSISTS
http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=142
In the face of concerns from some minority religious communities, law
professor Lovro Sturm, director of the Institute of Human Rights, told
Forum 18 News Service that his and his team's faith "will have no impact"
on the way they draft Slovenia's new religion bill. "I am a little bit
worried because of his position and ties to the Catholic Church," Adventist
leader Zmago Godina told Forum 18. "We want the new law explicitly to
assure the equality of all religious communities, without preferences for
any on the basis of their size or tradition," Godina added, in views echoed
by Lutheran bishop Geza Ernisa and others. The government's Office for
Religious Communities chose Sturm's Institute in July to prepare the new
bill, which Sturm says will be sent to the Office by the end of December.
The government must then approve it before it goes to parliament.


23 September 2003
CHINA: XINJIANG RELIGIOUS FREEDOM SURVEY, SEPTEMBER 2003

http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=143
By Igor Rotar, Central Asia Correspondent, Forum 18 News Service

The Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region (previously known as Eastern
Turkestan) is situated in the north west of China and borders Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Russia. With 16 per cent of China's territory, it
is the country's largest province. According to official Chinese
statistics, Xinjiang has a population of 16.5 million. Around half of the
population is Chinese, while the other half speak Turkic languages and
practise Islam. Of the latter, Uighurs constitute 42 per cent, the Kazakhs
6.2 per cent and the Kyrgyz 1 per cent.

Pervasive state control makes it difficult to collect information on what
the state regards as the sensitive issues of religious freedom or relations
between the Chinese state and Xinjiang's Muslim population. Almost all
those interviewed by Forum 18 said that if the authorities knew they had
supplied a journalist with "negative information", they could receive a
lengthy prison sentence. For that reason Forum 18 cannot reveal the names
of sources. 

Historically, Eastern Turkestan is part of the same ethnic and cultural
region as Central Asia. The people of Turkic origin who live here have a
similar language, culture, customs and history to the native peoples of the
Central Asian republics. In ancient times, the Uighurs were rulers of a
powerful civilisation which extended not only to the whole of Central Asia,
but also to China.

In 1759 the Manchu Chinese forces overcame the resistance of the Uighur
army. The captured lands became known as Xinjiang (meaning "new border").
Since the incorporation of the region into China, the Uighurs have staged
more than 400 uprisings. In 1944 the Uighurs even managed to seize part of
Xinjiang and proclaim the Republic of Eastern Turkestan, but it survived
only until 1949.

Relations between the Uighurs and the Chinese became particularly strained
after 1950, when Beijing began the mass resettlement of ethnic Chinese into
Eastern Turkestan. While in 1949 around 200,000 Chinese lived in the region
(10 per cent of the population), today around 8 million Chinese live there
(around 50 per cent of the population).

Since the start of the 1990s Xinjiang has had a powerful separatist Uighur
underground movement. Acts of terrorism take place periodically and
spontaneous uprisings flare up. In 1990 a bus was blown up in Kashgar, the
main city in the south of the autonomous region, and again in 1992 in
Urumqi, the region's capital. In 1990, when the authorities closed off
access by believers to a mosque, an uprising broke out in the village of
Barin (a suburb of Kashgar). In 1995, when the authorities sacked the local
imam, an uprising broke out in the town of Khotan, 530 kilometres (850
miles) east of Kashgar. The most serious disturbances in recent years took
place in February 1997 in the town of Inin on the border with Kazakhstan,
390 kilometres (625 miles) west of Urumqi, where full-scale battles between
Uighur young people and the police raged for several days. The conflict
left 55 Chinese and 25 Uighurs dead.

The Chinese government views Uighur separatism as a serious threat to state
security. "Today you can criticise the communists privately, but to say
anything (even within one's own family) in support of Uighur independence
is to risk arrest," Uighurs told Forum 18.

At first glance Muslims in Xinjiang do not appear to be subject to any
persecution by the authorities. You can see working mosques virtually
everywhere in Kashgar. Forum 18 found that the number of functioning
mosques in Xinjiang is much greater than, for example, in Uzbekistan, where
the authorities are trying to limit the number of Islamic places of
worship. However, local Muslims told Forum 18 that the mosques are strictly
controlled by the authorities and all the imam-hatybs are appointed by the
authorities. As in, for example, Uzbekistan, a religious community can only
begin functioning once it has registered with the state authorities. In
every local district there is a state Islamic association that oversees the
life of Muslims.

The Chinese authorities also control the distribution of religious
literature. The owner of a Muslim bookshop in Kashgar, who preferred not to
be named, told Forum 18 that the state had compiled a list of religious
literature that was allowed in China. "If a book is found in my shop that
is not included in that list my trading licence will be taken away
immediately," the bookseller told Forum 18.

An unofficial order bans Muslims working in state-owned businesses from
visiting the mosque under threat of dismissal. Forum 18 saw posters on
mosques saying that anyone younger than 18 was not allowed to visit the
mosque. Schoolchildren are also banned from going to school wearing a hijab
(a traditional scarf worn by Muslim women that leaves only the face
uncovered). "I am a Muslim and I have to wear a hijab, but we are not
allowed to wear such 'ridiculous clothing' in school," a 15-year-old
schoolgirl told Forum 18. "Every day I go to school in clothes that a
Muslim woman ought to wear, and I only change into my horrible school
uniform when I reach the door!" 

Uighur officials also practise guile. As soon as they retire they start
praying not five times a day, as Muslims are required to do, but 10 or even
15 times a day, making up for the lost years. It is worth noting that
people acted similarly in Central Asia during the Soviet era, where many
party officials became zealous Muslims once they retired. Chinese
propaganda proclaims that educated people, such as teachers, cannot be
believers, as this is a mark of ignorance. There was similar propaganda in
the Soviet era when, for example, a student at a higher education
institution seen attending a place of worship could be excluded from his
course, because by visiting a religious building he had "shown his
ignorance".

However, unlike neighbouring Central Asia, where today various radical
Islamic groups are very active, such groups have not become widespread in
Eastern Turkestan. For example, no Muslims Forum 18 spoke to in Xinjiang
had heard anything about the Hizb-ut-Tahrir party, an international Islamic
organisation very active in Central Asia despite being banned in all the
Central Asian states.

True, Forum 18 has established that recently so-called Wahhabis - Muslims
who adhere to the Hanbali school of Sunni Islam which is widespread in
Saudi Arabia - have appeared in Xinjiang ("Wahhabi" is also a term widely
used in Central Asia and incorrectly applied to Muslims who criticise the
official clergy). Although the Uighurs, like the Muslims of Central Asia,
belong to the Hanafi school, recently some young people in Xinjiang's
mosques have been performing their prayers in the manner of Hanbalis of
Saudi Arabia. Several local young people, like the so-called "Wahhabis" of
Central Asia, criticise expensive weddings and funerals and the worship of
mazars (the graves of holy people), because they believe such practices
violate the laws of Islam. At the same time, unlike in Central Asia, no
confrontations have been recorded in Xinjiang between the "Wahhabis" and
the Hanafis.

Another point of similarity with the situation in Central Asia is the
fierce hostility of local Muslims to the military action taken by the
United States and Britain in Iraq. Virtually all those whom Forum 18 met
believed that the US and Britain were guilty of the massacre of innocent
Iraqi Muslims. Forum 18's sources regarded the US as the enemy of Muslims
throughout the world.

It is worth noting that between 1983 and 1996 state officials and those
under 18 were not banned from attending mosques. Local people told Forum 18
that Muslims experienced no persecution from the authorities during this
period. It appears that in 1996 the Chinese authorities concluded that
Uighur separatism had a clearly religious foundation.

This is partially true. The Uighurs are much more zealous Muslims than
their Central Asian neighbours. The majority of local married women wear
the yashmak (which is rare in Central Asia), while middle-aged men prefer
to wear beards. Forum 18 often heard Uighurs say that their people "could
never live peacefully with the Chinese, because most of them are atheists".
A Uighur man, for example, will never go to a restaurant if the proprietor
is Chinese, because the food is not prepared according to the rules of
Islam.

The Chinese law restricting childbirth arouses great upset (although the
Uighurs, as a national minority, are allowed to have one child more than
the Chinese). "According to our Islamic customs, the more children there
are in a home, the greater the happiness. The Chinese law insults our
faith," Uighurs told Forum 18.

Forum 18 found that the overwhelming majority of Uighurs are strongly
hostile to the Chinese. For example, in Kashgar a Uighur will never get in
a taxi if the driver is Chinese, preferring to pay money to his
compatriots. "When they found out that I was friendly with Chinese people,
the Uighurs were so upset that they even wanted to beat me up. They felt
that Muslims have no right to have anything to do with the Chinese,"
complained one Kyrgyz businessman who works in Xinjiang.

The hostility towards the Chinese contrasts sharply with the tolerant
relations between Central Asian communities and the "Russian colonialists"
in Soviet times. One of the reasons is perhaps that Muslim teaching
recommends a more well-disposed attitude to Jews and Christians - the
so-called "people of the Book" - than to people professing other faiths.
Another reason is that in Soviet Central Asia there were no serious
demographic changes similar to those in Xinjiang (Kazakhstan is an
exception to this). In 1979 the percentage of Russians in Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan and Turkmenistan was no more than 12 per cent.

Even as it tries to reduce the Uighurs' religious commitment, the Chinese
government demonstrates a pronounced respect for their national culture.
Teaching in school and in further education establishments is in Uighur,
while there are Uighur television programmes and Uighur newspapers. In the
Chinese army special kitchens prepare food for Muslim soldiers.

Every year the Chinese authorities hold competitions for Uighur children.
The most gifted are given the option of attending prestigious colleges in
eastern China at government expense. Once they have finished their tuition,
the school leavers return to work in Xinjiang absolutely secularised and
distanced from the Islamic laws and completely assimilated into Chinese
culture.

At the same time as the government is trying to stamp out Uighur
separatism, it is pouring money into this backward province. The economic
progress is indeed impressive. When Forum 18's correspondent visited
Xinjiang in 1994 the main means of transport in the towns of the autonomous
region were horse-drawn carriages and bicycles. Today it has become
commonplace for local people to travel about in cars. Even Uighur
separatists admitted to Forum 18 that the standard of living in Xinjiang
has risen markedly over the past 10 years.

However, while pouring money into the Xinjiang economy, the government is
also trying to destroy traditional Muslim culture, Forum 18 was told. As an
illustration, local people cited the example of the area around the
historic Id-Kah central mosque in Kashgar. Six months ago this was a
traditional Uighur district with many shops and tea salons where Muslims
used to gather. Now the authorities have begun construction of a huge
supermarket on the square in front of the mosque. The shops and tea salons
have been destroyed under a city reconstruction plan. Speaking to Forum 18,
local people interpret these transformations as a deliberate attempt to
make the Muslim district conform to Chinese culture. For the time being at
least, the tension between local Muslims and the Chinese government has not
been relieved by Xinjiang's economic growth.
(END)

� Forum 18 News Service. All rights reserved.

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