Xinjiang
Radio Free Asia reports that an agricultural official in the Xinjiang regional government confirmed the existence of a system of forced labor called "hasha" in remote areas of the countryside, in which laborers are not paid for their work. The report quoted the official as saying: "In the other provinces in China where there has been rapid economic development, hasha was phased out long ago . . . [b]ut here in Xinjiang, we still need it."
One Uighur man described his experience with hasha to RFA as follows: "For one month out of every year for three years we were forced to open up land that had never been settled before—it was just wilderness. We were also forced to build houses for Han Chinese immigrants who were resettling in the area."
Forum 18 reports that it observed a list of banned activities that Chinese authorities ordered local Imam Musu Ma to hang in his office in the Dungan Mosque in the town of Burqin, Xinjiang. According to the report, the list of banned activities included the following:
- teaching religion "privately";
- allowing children under 18 to attend a mosque; and
- allowing Islam to influence family life and birth planning behaviour.
Musu Ma reported that similar displays hang in the offices of virtually all the imams of Xinjiang's mosques.
The Daily Information News reports that in June, the Xinjiang High Court led a public appraisal of written legal judgments handed down in the region's lower courts. The high court recommended that judgments be drafted to reflect not only the legal resolution of each case but also the human logic of the result. A representative of the court explained that such judgments promote popular legal understanding and help mend strained human relationships.
The following text was retrieved from the Bortala Mongol Autonomous Prefecture Ethnicity and Religion Web site on December 3, 2012.