TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Photographs out of Xinjiang, China over the past few days have documented how police and Communist cadres in the region are enforcing dress codes imposed on Uyghur women.
China claims that the threat of Islamic extremism in the central Asia region, also known as East Turkestan, has made authoritarian measures necessary, such as prohibiting Uyghur women from wearing long dresses. Photos shared on twitter over the past weekend show cadres cutting the clothes of Uyghur women on the street to enforce the dress code.
In what must be a humiliating experience for the women, the dresses, which in many cases should properly be called long shirts, are either sheared off at the bottom, or cut partially, to ruin the clothing and compel the women to avoid wearing similar items in the future.
Chinese authorities have already prohibited the more traditional body coverings that are a hallmark of fundamentalist Islam. So in an effort to dress modestly, many Uyghur women have opted for longer articles of clothing to cover their back side and upper thighs.
(Images from Twitter)
However, apparently, such clothing choices are seen as inappropriate and an attempt to skirt the already highly authoritarian dress codes for women.
To most Westerners, the idea that any authority figure would deem a woman’s clothing as too long, is strikingly peculiar. The idea that clothing would then be forcibly shortened to adhere to the rules of a government’s dress code is stranger still.
Since the Communist party aims to completely eradicate any possibility that women could potentially hide weapons or explosives in their clothing, they have now resorted to the deplorable act of shearing off women’s clothing, so that their legs and back side will remain visible at all times, as seen in the photos shared by the DOAM Twitter account.
It seems obvious that the Chinese government fears Uyghurs will continue to push the boundaries of state policy. Therefore the local cadres have opted for these very disrespectful displays to ensure compliance.
Last month, a video of a Uyghur woman being forced to marry a Chinese man went viral, displaying another despicable tactic of "gene washing" that the Chinese government is using to forcibly integrate the Uyghur ethnic group into “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The human rights situation in Xinjiang appears to be rapidly deteriorating, with the Chinese government using every means necessary to punish resistance, creating what has been called an “open air prison” and what may be the most surveilled region on Earth.
(Images from Twitter)
Source: Taiwan News
By Duncan DeAeth
Taiwan News, Staff Writer