China has passed a law to “Sinicize” Islam in the next five years, according to an article published by the Global Times, amid outcry over Beijing’s persecution of the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.
“China will soon release an outline on the sinicization of Islam, with Islamic communities urged to uphold the sinicization of their religion by improving their political stance and following the Party's leadership,” the English-language Chinese publication stated.
At a seminar in Beijing on Saturday, representatives from local Islamic associations from eight provinces and regions across China discussed a five-year outline on Islam’s sinicization.
The law’s content will soon be released to the public after further revisions, and has already been distributed to local Islamic associations, Jin Rubin, deputy chairman of the China Islamic Association, told the Times.
The sinicization of Islam aims to make it compatible with socialist society, said Gao Zhanfu, a vice dean of the Beijing-based China Islamic Institute.
He went on to say that books will start to be used in mosques from 2019 to help Muslims “better understand the sinicization of Islam.”
Established under the pretext of “political reeducation” for China’s Muslim population, Beijing has amped up its construction of detention camps in the past couple of months, expanding them by an additional 700,000 square meters, according to satellite imagery.
Beijing has faced an outcry from activists, scholars, foreign governments and U.N. rights experts over what they call mass detentions and strict surveillance of the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority and other Muslim groups who call Xinjiang home.
Xinjiang region is home to around 10 million Uyghurs. The Turkic Muslim group which makes up around 45 percent of the population of Xinjiang, has long accused China’s authorities for cultural, religious and economic discrimination.
Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based exile group the World Uyghur Congress, said that the Chinese government was using extremism as an excuse to lock people up.
"What they are trying to do is destroy Uyghur identity," he said.
