Militants ‘trying to ban laughing’ claim
Print Edition
ISLAMIST militants are trying to ban laughter at weddings and crying at funerals, it was claimed yesterday as the chairman of northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region appealed for the “tumor” of extremism to be stamped out.
Writing in the Xinjiang Daily, Nur Bekri vowed to stop religious extremism from spreading in the ethnic region.
He said recent years had seen separatists, terrorists and religious extremists renew their efforts to sabotage Xinjiang’s prosperity and stability by perpetrating a slew of terrorist incidents.
These were fueled by religious extremism and the acts of terror were made possible by taking advantage of people’s faith, especially “young people who have seen little of the world,” he wrote.
“In order to incite fanaticism and control believers, religious extremists have blatantly distorted religious teachings, making up heresy such as ‘jihadist martyrs go to heaven,’ ‘killing a pagan is worth over 10 years of piety,’ and ‘one gets whatever one wants in heaven’,” he wrote.
Extremists use such heresy to bewilder believers into what they believe is “jihad” in the form of suicide terror attacks or other violence, he said.
Those deceived became pawns in a politically motivated plot, he said, describing religious extremism as a “tumor” threatening the region.
The chairman cited last month’s attack in the southwestern city of Kunming, where knife-wielding assailants killed 29 civilians and injured 143 at a railway station.
Evidence pointed to the attack being committed by terrorists from Xinjiang and the brutal violence against civilians revealed their antihuman nature, Nur Bekri said.
He said extremists attempt to pit believers against “pagans,” alienating non-believers and those who do not conform to their rules or practices, hurling insults such as “traitors” and “scum” at them.
They also advocate “religion above all,” and a pan-Islam society, he added. They forbid believers to watch TV, listen to the radio, read newspapers or even “laugh during weddings or cry during funerals.” They force men to grow beards and women to wear burqas, he said.
Nur Bekri also claimed in the article that extremists had demanded not only food, but also medicines, cosmetics and clothing to be halal, promulgating the idea that life necessities produced elsewhere were non-halal.
Those harnessing religious extremism mean to build up their forces against the government, and to create social chaos through terrorist attacks, in the hope of causing a split in the country, he said.
Nur Bekri called on officials, particularly ethnic minority officials, to counter extremists’ lies and for people of all ethnicities to distinguish normal religious activities from extremist acts.
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