Xinjiang Police Reportedly Bar Uighur Haj Pilgrimage By Confiscating Passports

October 26, 2005

Xinjiang police confiscated the passports of a group of Uighur pilgrims seeking to cross the border by bus at Qonjirap in Xinjiang on August 25, according to the East Turkistan Information Center (in Uighur). The group had planned to spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Mecca.

Xinjiang police confiscated the passports of a group of Uighur pilgrims seeking to cross the border by bus at Qonjirap in Xinjiang on August 25, according to the East Turkistan Information Center (in Uighur). The group had planned to spend the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Mecca.

Although several international human rights declarations and covenants call on signatories and parties to allow citizens freedom of movement (see, e.g., Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), Chinese law limits Chinese Muslims to state-sponsored pilgrimages to Mecca. Article 11 of China's 2005 Regulations on Religious Affairs says that "The national Islamic religious organization shall be responsible for organizing foreign pilgrimages for Muslim Chinese citizens." The 2001 Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Regulations on the Management of Religious Affairs restrict the movement of Muslims more explicitly, by specifying that "pilgrimage activities are to be organized by the religious affairs departments of the people's governments and religious organizations. No other organization or individual may organize such activities."

For more detailed discussion of religious policy in Xinjiang, see Human Rights Watch's Devastating Blows and CECC's roundtables on Islam and on the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law.