Press Release: Totalitarian Chinese Regime Continues Its War On Islam By Shooting Demonstrators Protesting Against Detention Of Women And Girls For Wearing Islamic Dress

Radio Free Asia reported that on Tuesday 20th May, Xinjiang Police opened fire on a protest of hundreds of mostly Muslim Uyghur men and women demonstrating against the local authority’s detention of several women and middle school girls for wearing Islamic dress in a school in the Xinjiang province. Initially, the families of the detained women and girls gathered in front of government buildings in a township in Aksu County, demanding their immediate release. Later, the protest increased in size as other residents joined to express their anger over the arrests. According to eyewitnesses, up to four people may have been killed and several others wounded. Dozens of protestors were also detained by police.

Hizb ut Tahrir utterly condemns this latest criminal action of the totalitarian Chinese regime against the innocent Uyghur Muslims as well as its ongoing attack on Islamic practices in the region. The Chinese government has obviously cynically employed the false, emotive label of rooting out ‘religious extremism and terrorism’ as a cover to pursue a relentless, decades old campaign. It is a ruthless campaign afflicting Muslims of Xinjiang with harassment, religious repression and forced assimilation to coerce them to abandon their deeply-held Islamic beliefs.

These tactics have included a general crackdown on bearded Uyghur Muslim men as well as barring women from wearing the Islamic dress in government buildings and venues. In addition, the regime has banned private religious education, barred state employees or anyone under 18 to enter mosques, and prohibited students, teachers and government workers from fasting in Ramadan. Last year it was reported that authorities placed a Chinese flag above the prayer area in a mosque in Aksu, Xinjiang Province, forcing Uyghur Muslims to bow to it when performing prayer.

And on April 16th 2014, a notice on the Xinjiang Shayar county government website promised cash rewards for individuals who reported on local residents exhibiting particular religious behavior which included wearing ‘bizarre dress’ (a reference to Islamic dress), men growing beards, the use of religious courts to resolve disputes, and the adherence to the Islamic rulings (Ahkam) in marriage and divorce. Alongside all this, the Muslims of Xinjiang have endured decades of discrimination, repression, unemployment and crippling poverty due to discriminatory policies from an oppressive regime that has ruled over them with an iron fist and sought to marginalize them within their own homeland. It is a regime that conducts arbitrary searches and detentions of Uyghur Muslims, and forces Uyghur Muslim women to undergo abortions even when 9 months pregnant. This regime has killed dozens of Xinjiang’s Muslims just over the last year.    

The Chinese government clearly views the ever-increasing attachment of Uyghur Muslims to their Deen as a threat to their economic interests in the region. 

We in Hizb ut Tahrir, we say to this totalitarian regime – if you believe that your oppressive actions will abolish Islam or ban its growth in East Turkestan you are deluded. Despite decades of your repressive policies, Muslims have only increased their love and adherence in its Ahkam.

Furthermore, if you believe that you can conduct this ruthless campaign of religious suppression from abolishment against Islam and Muslims without attention from the world, you are gravely mistaken. We in Hizb ut Tahrir, we will not tolerate such crimes against our dear brothers and sisters rather we will charge them to the international media and Muslims in all parts of the world… As for tomorrow, you will stand in the court docks to be accounted by the definitely arriving Khilafah, Allah willing, on what you committed of crimes and atrocities!

O Dear Uyghur Muslim brothers and sisters!
Your plight pains our hearts. Thus we work day and night to establish the Khilafah State which will lift the oppression from you and will provide security and protection under the Hukm Islam once again as it did in the past. Know that you are stronger than your oppressor for Allah (swt) is with you; and whoever has the Support of Allah (swt) will always be given His Victory. So we call you to hold firm to your Deen adhering to it in all your actions, and to work for the establishment of the Khilafah in which alone your salvation lies.

Women’s Section
The Central Media Office
of Hizb ut Tahrir