Forcing others to wear extremist garments is crime: China

Chennai

CHINA: A judicial interpretation issued by the Supreme People'sProcuratorate (SPP) and the Supreme People's Court stipulates thatforcing others to wear clothes or symbols associated with terrorism andextremism while spreading terrorism and extremism is considered a crime,state-run Global Times reported today. Anyone who violently forcesothers to wear such garments will be put under surveillance, detained orface a maximum of three years in prison, the report said.

Neither the amendment nor the interpretation by the SPP provided furtherdetails about what constitutes extremist garments or symbols under thelaw. The amendment came after Xinjiang's local legislature adopted aregulation banning burqa in public in Urumqi, the capital ofXinjiang.Gong Xiaojun, a resident of Urumqi who repeatedly refused localpolicemen's requests that he shave his full beard and allow his wife tonot wear a burqa, was sentenced to two years behind bars by a localcourt in 2014 for resisting the requests of a public servant, accordingto the criminal judgement in his case.

The ban against burqa followed a spate of violent attacks allegedly bythe separatist East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM) militants inXinjiang where Uyghur Muslims were restive over the continuedsettlements of Han community from other parts of China.Chinesegovernment has deployed a large number of security forces to combat theviolence. Turgunjan Tursun, a research fellow at the Xinjiang Academy ofSocial Sciences, told the Global Times that it is not common for peoplein Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to wear suchgarments these days. He said that most of those who wear clothes orsymbols associated with terrorism and extremism have been forced to doso and some have been fooled into doing so by being told that what theyare wearing is normal religious costume.