Xinjiang

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continue to target "illegal religious activities" and "religious extremism" as threats to the region's stability, maintaining curbs over religious activities undertaken outside of government-approved parameters and singling out Islamic practices in a number of cases. At a December 2010 XUAR Communist Party Committee Standing Committee meeting, attendees called for "resolutely preventing illegal religious activities and striking against religious extremist forces in accordance with law" as part of the region's work to maintain stability, according to a Xinjiang Daily report (via Xinhua, December 8, 2010). Following the meeting, the Party issued opinions on demarcating and preventing "illegal" religious activities in early 2011, which multiple localities reported implementing, according to descriptions of the opinions. (Full text not available.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government has continued to expand a program of rewarding ethnic minority households that have fewer children than allowed under the region's regulation on population and family planning, building on initiatives throughout China to reward fewer births while intensifying a regional focus on ethnic minority households. Among various population planning reward programs in place in the region, a program in place since 2007 has rewarded rural ethnic minority couples that have fewer than the three children permitted under the XUAR Regulation on Population and Family Planning (Article 15), based on a description of the program posted September 4, 2008, on the Zepu (Poskam) county, Kashgar district, government Web site.

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) government accelerated steps to promote Mandarin-centered "bilingual education" in the past year, in accordance with targets set in mid-2010 to universalize "bilingual education" in the region's schools. Following a central government and Communist Party-led Work Forum on Xinjiang in May 2010, which set state objectives for the region's economic and political development, XUAR officials announced that they would "basically universalize" "bilingual education" in XUAR schools by 2015 with the goal that ethnic minority students "basically have a skilled grasp and use" of spoken and written Mandarin by 2020, according to May 28 reports from China News Service (via China Xinjiang) and China Daily.

Authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) have continued widespread censorship campaigns in 2010 and 2011, according to recent reports. The censorship work in the XUAR hews to a countrywide campaign to "Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications," but with special emphasis on religious and political items and "reactionary materials" that authorities deem are from organizations connected to the "three forces" of terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism.

The Aqsu Intermediate People's Court in Aqsu municipality, Aqsu district, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), sentenced Uyghur Web site administrator Tursunjan Hezim (Hézim) to seven years' imprisonment in July 2010, according to a March 6, 2011, Radio Free Asia (RFA) report. Authorities did not notify his family of the charges, according to a source cited in the report, but the sentence follows the detention and imprisonment of several other Web site administrators and staff (1, 2) after demonstrations and riots in the XUAR starting on July 5, 2009. Authorities detained and imprisoned the Web site workers in apparent connection to announcements on the Internet calling for a demonstration on July 5, 2009, and to online articles and interviews critical of Chinese government policy in the XUAR.

Hiring practices that discriminate against non-Han groups have continued in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). As documented by the CECC in recent years (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), job recruitment announcements from the region have reserved positions exclusively for Han Chinese in civil servant posts, state-owned enterprises, and private-sector jobs, including those advertised on government Web sites. The practices contravene provisions in Chinese law that forbid discrimination. The restrictions accompany other discriminatory requirements, present in some job recruitment programs elsewhere in China, based on factors such as sex and age. (See Section II―Worker Rights in the CECC 2010 Annual Report for additional information.)

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