By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
June 5, 2014 5:39 am
A hospital in a city in the western region of Xinjiang that was the site of deadly ethnic unrest in 1997 has asked its staff members not to skip meals during Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting that begins on June 28, the local health department said.
The request at a meeting at the Chinese Medicine Hospital in Yining, also known as Ghulja, on “upholding ethnic minority unity,” was made “in order not to affect normal work and life,” a Sina Weibo post by the county’s health department said. Hospital staff members who belong to ethnic minorities were requested to sign their pledge of compliance in a “responsibility book.”
Photographs on the health department’s Weibo site showed two large tables where mostly female staff members, many in what appeared to be nurse’s uniforms, were seated with their hands folded. The meeting was presided over by the hospital’s Communist Party secretary, Zhang Xiguang, the post said.
The request was likely to upset some Uighurs, the Muslim, Turkic-speaking ethnic group based in Xinjiang. Tensions have been high between members of China’s dominant ethnic Han and Uighurs who say their religion and way of life are under threat from central government policies. President Xi Jinping recently announced a yearlong “strike hard” antiterrorism campaign, following a string of knife and bomb attacks that the authorities say were carried out by separatists from Xinjiang.
Reaction to the post was heated, and divided. Some commenters said it was only reasonable to ask medical personnel not to fast while they were working, as it could undermine safety.
“I totally support the hospital on this,” wrote Super Old Jadeite. “If you don’t like it you can choose another job. So-called customs aren’t immutable, they change all the time, and you really should separate your profession from your religious beliefs.”
Said a commenter called Dog Below the Su River Gate, “To value an individual’s customs over the life on the operating table is to confuse religion and life and to offer fertile soil to the sprouts of extremism.”
But others said it was an unacceptable transgression of people’s beliefs.
“How is it wrong?” asked Yexil Esra. “These are our religious beliefs! Who says that just because a person doesn’t eat lunch they lose their mental and physical ability to work normally. Have you fasted during Ramadan? You won’t die because of it.”
Said a commenter called Happiness Comes and Goes: “Ramadan is a person’s individual freedom of belief. It’s a private matter. If it does influence their work, then that’s their personal responsibility.”
And Dama Mitu_9527 asked, “Yining Health Department, are you sure this isn’t unconstitutional? (angry face)”
In February 1997, Yining was rocked by riots over the arrests of dozens of young Muslims that left at least nine people dead.