Image:
Body:
Chinese authorities have started carrying out stricter ideological education among ethnic minorities in the Xinjiang and Tibet regions this month and detained those who are not obedient to what they call programs aimed at teaching a more modern way of living, people familiar with the situation said Thursday.
A copy of a notice regarding education issued by authorities of Hotan in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region obtained by Kyodo News demands Muslim women not wear head scarves.
The notice, dated Dec. 4 and written in the Uyghur language, asks Muslim women to dress in a modern way and says they will have to take reeducation if they do not comply with the request.
It also warns that a serious violator of the order will be subject to criminal charges.
"There is a person who has been detained as a terrorist only because he was with a long beard," one person, an ethnic Uyghur, said on condition of anonymity. "Their approach is far from conciliatory."
The Chinese government under President Xi Jinping has been strengthening controls on Uyghur and Tibetan ethnic minorities since there was an apparent suicide car attack near Tiananmen Square in central Beijing in October.
Chinese authorities have said the five people they captured and the three people who died in a sport-utility vehicle that plowed into a crowd of pedestrians on Oct. 28 in front of the Forbidden City are linked to an independence movement in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, characterizing the fatal incident as "a terrorist attack."
China has been giving the education that restricts religious beliefs particularly in hometowns of the eight suspects in the Uygur region, including Hotan and the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture.
The situation is also similar in recent days in the Tibet Autonomous Region, where local authorities are stepping up their efforts to detain Tibetan monks who are not following Chinese values and shutting down their monasteries, according to the people.