The Chinese government strictly controls the practice of Islam, and severely represses Islamic worship among members of the Uighur minority population in Xinjiang [see Section III(a)¡ªSpecial Focus for 2005: China's Minorities and Government Implementation of the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law]. All public mosques throughout the country must register with the state-run China Islamic Association. The government bans all private mosques, as it does private religious venues of any faith. Before they can practice, imams must be licensed by the Chinese government, and afterward must attend patriotic education sessions regularly. The China Islamic Association's Islamic Affairs Steering Committee, established by the central government in March 2001, continues to author suggested sermons and to censor Islamic religious texts to ensure that all published interpretations properly reflect "socialist development and advanced culture."
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Several provinces are running Ethnic Unity and Advancement Campaigns demanding that religious organizations decrease their financial dependence on the state while also accepting fewer contributions from their practitioners.
73 The government continues to subsidize religious personnel who "ardently love their country,"
74 but several mosques have been forced to charge visitors admission fees or lease out portions of their facilities.
75 To fund its growing debts last summer, the Religious Management Committee of the Guangyuan mosque in Sichuan province reportedly allowed private investors to convert two stories of the mosque into an "Arabian Nights Bar and Discotheque."
76 The new RRA provisions that allow foreign and domestic donations to religious organizations may ease some financial pressures, but all of their revenue and expenditures must be reported to SARA.
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Outside of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the government allows some Muslim groups to run private schools for minors in poor areas and to engage in other social welfare programs.
78 A government-run Web site highlighted in 2005 the achievements of a privately run Islamic school in Gansu province,
79 for example, and the Qinghai press praised the Dongguan mosque's contributions of food and shelter to the needy.
80 Outside of Xinjiang, the government allows some mosques
81 registered with the China Islamic Association to manage religious schools for those 18 years and older.
82 As the government notes the positive contributions of Islamic groups, officials may allow them to assume greater responsibility for the nation's growing social welfare needs.
Within Xinjiang, the Chinese government conflates private Uighur Islamic practices with "religious extremism" and "ethnic splittism."
83 Islam is a key component of Uighur ethnic identity, and the government is concerned it may be used to build support for greater effective autonomy. Uighurs face more restrictions on their religious life than other Muslims, including non-Uighurs living in Xinjiang.
84 According to a member of Xinjiang's Academy of Social Sciences, Xinjiang has more religious regulations than any other province, providing the government a "powerful legal weapon" to control religion.
85 In a major policy statement in January, Xinjiang General Secretary Wang Lequan declared that the Party "must unremittingly make education in atheism part of the effort to transform social customs, guide the masses to develop a scientific, civilized, and healthy way of life, and promote nationality development and progress."
86 Xinjiang leaders hail China's new RRA as a "prime opportunity" to increase religious management in the struggle against religious extremism and splittism.
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The current crackdown on Uighur Islamic practices began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and has increased in intensity in the post-September 11 era.
88 Central and provincial authorities developed a set of religious regulations in the early 1990s that impose restrictions in Xinjiang not found elsewhere in China.
89 These restrictions continue to determine policy today. The Party Central Committee imposed "severe controls on the building of new mosques"
90 in 1996, the same year that Xinjiang authorities targeted "religious extremists and ethnic separatists" for arrest
91 during a national "strike hard" campaign against general crime.
92 New regulations in October 1998 required all imams in Xinjiang to attend mandatory "patriotic education" courses each year to renew their accreditations.
93 In 2001, the Xinjiang local people's congress amended the central government's 1994 Regulations on the Management of Religious Affairs restricting religious observances to those who "safeguard the unification of the motherland and national solidarity, and oppose national splittism and illegal religious activities."
94
The government arrested more than 200 Muslims in July and August 2005 for possessing "illegal religious texts."
95 The Xinjiang government prohibits state-sanctioned religious groups below the provincial level from publishing religious materials without receiving prior approval from the Xinjiang State Administration of Religious Affairs.
96 Individuals and groups are strictly prohibited from publishing or disseminating any material with "religious content" without government permission.
Central government officials assured the foreign press in March 2005 that minors are allowed to worship freely in China,
97 but the Xinjiang government prohibits children under 18 years of age from entering mosques or receiving religious instruction even in their own homes.
98 Students may not observe religious holidays, fast during Ramadan, or wear religious clothing in public schools. The government requires teachers to report students who pray or observe Ramadan.
99 The government regulates the construction of mosques and has closed hundreds of them since the mid-1990s.
100 The government outlaws all private religious classes (madrassas) and mosques in Xinjiang.
Government controls on religious belief and practice in Xinjiang not only violate the freedom of religion of Xinjiang's minority people, but also their freedom of expression and the right of each minority to protect and develop its own culture that is conferred by the 1984 Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law.
101 Government policies also contravene several international conventions to which China is a signatory.
102 The government's refusal to recognize the Uighurs' constitutionally guaranteed right to practice their religion freely has exacerbated tensions in the region [see Section III(a)¡ªSpecial Focus for 2005: China's Minorities and Government Implementation of the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law]. A recent Human Rights Watch report warns that unless the government eases controls on Uighur religious activities, the policy "will likely alienate Uighurs, drive religious expression further underground, and encourage the development of more radicalized and oppositional forms of religious identity."
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