A city in China’s remote western Xinjiang region has temporarily banned men with beards and women with Muslim headscarves from taking public buses. The extreme security measure to be implemented for the duration of a sports competition slated to kick off in northern Xinjiang’s Karamay city on August 8 is the latest example of the kind of religious intolerance that some say has
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By Javier García
Kashgar/Urumqi, China, May 7 (EFE).- A muezzin calls for prayer during Ramadan from Kashgar’s Id Kah mosque, the largest in China, without using a loudspeaker, unlike other Muslim places, while about 50 devotees gather to pray, a small number for a city of more than 700,000 people.
The mosque, built in the 15th century and surrounded by gardens, can accommodate up to 20,000 people and is a symbol of Kashgar, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world and the legendary capital of southern Xinjiang, predominantly populated by the Uyghur ethnic minority.
The mosque’s imam, Juma Tahir, was stabbed to death by four Islamic extremists on July 30, 2014, outside the compound a few minutes after morning prayer, meeting the same fate as other imams, especially in southern Xinjiang.