A Chinese court has jailed a Uighur man for six years for growing a beard in defiance of local government rules aimed at combating extremism, while his wife was given two years for wearing a burka.
The couple was found guilty under the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all accusation used regularly in the Chinese legal system to punish dissidents.
Xinjiang's 10 million-plus Turkic-speaking Uighurs are a Turkic Muslim ethnic group that shares close linguistic and cultural links to central Asia, and is quite distinct from China's majority Han.
Violence started to intensify last year and 200 people were killed in a series of bombings, knife attacks and clashes with security forces, which the Beijing government says are caused by “separatists” and “religious extremists”.
Uighurs complain that Beijing is trying to crush its culture, but the government says it is trying to bring prosperity to the oil and gas-rich province.
A report in the China Youth Daily newspaper said that the 38-year-old Uighur "had started growing his beard in 2010," while his wife "wore a veil hiding her face and a burka".
The couple had received several warnings, it said. "Since the beginning of the year, a certain number of people breaking the regulation on beards, veils and burkas have been prosecuted and sentenced," it quoted government officials in the west Xinjiang city of Kashgar as saying.
The fiercely secular Communist Party keeps a firm grip on religion in China, requiring the faithful to worship at state-organised mosques and churches.
Last year the government intensified its crackdown on what it termed “illegal religious activities” among the mostly Muslim Uighurs and offered a reward to anyone who informed on men growing large beards.
The government has also introduced a campaign called “Project Beauty”, which encourages women to leave their heads bare and stop wearing a veil.
In August last year, authorities in Karamay city banned people with large beards or Islamic clothing from travelling on public buses.
Last year, Muslim civil servants, teachers, students and cadres in Xinjiang were ordered not to fast during the month of Ramadan as part of efforts to tighten security following a series of deadly attacks.
Xinjiang is China’s biggest province, accounting for 16 per cent of the land area.
Many Uighurs say the suppression of cultural and religious freedoms is fuelling unrest in the region and attacks elsewhere in China.
President Xi Jinping has pledged to come down hard on religious extremists and separatist groups in the province.
Beijing blames the East Turkestan Islamic Movement for violence in Xinjiang, saying it is China's most potent security threat. The movement was listed as a terrorist organisation by the US in 2002.
