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13/11/2019

Xinjiang cotton sparks concern over ‘forced labour’ claims

Farmers pick cotton during the harvest on October 21, 2019 in Shaya County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

Global retailers are facing scrutiny over cotton supplies sourced from Xinjiang, a Chinese region plagued by allegations of human rights abuses.

China is one of the world’s top cotton producers and most of its crop is grown in Xinjiang.

Rights groups say Xinjiang’s Uighur minority are being persecuted and recruited for forced labour.

Many brands are thought to indirectly source cotton products from the Xinjiang region in China’s far west.

Japanese retailers Muji and Uniqlo attracted attention recently after a report highlighted the brands used the Xinjiang-origin of their cotton as a selling point in advertisements.

H&M, Esprit and Adidas are among the firms said to be at the end of supply chains involving cotton products from Xinjiang, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.

“You can’t be sure that you don’t have coerced labour in your supply chain if you do cotton business in China,” said Nathan Ruser, researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“Xinjiang labour and what is almost certainly coerced labour is very deeply entrenched into the supply chain that exists in Xinjiang.”

What is happening in Xinjiang?

UN experts and human rights groups say China is holding more than a million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in vast detention camps.

Rights groups also say people in camps are made to learn Mandarin Chinese, swear loyalty to President Xi Jinping, and criticise or renounce their faith.

China says those people are attending “vocational training centres” which are giving them jobs and helping them integrate into Chinese society, in the name of preventing terrorism.

What is produced in Xinjiang?

The Xinjiang region is a key hub of Chinese cotton production.

China produces about 22% of global cotton supplies, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Last year, 84% of Chinese cotton came from Xinjiang, the report said.

That has raised concerns over whether forced labour has been used in the production of cotton from the region.

This photo taken on September 11, 2019 shows people walking past a mosque in Urumqi, the regional capital of Xinjiang. — Image caption The Uighurs are mostly Muslims, and number about 11 million in China’s Xinjiang region

Nury Turkel, chairman of the Uighur Human Rights Project in Washington, said the Uighurs were being “detained and tormented” and “swept into a vast system of forced labor” in Xinjiang.

In testimony to US congress, he said it was becoming “increasingly hard to ignore the fact” that the goods manufactured in the region have “a high likelihood” of being produced with forced labour.

Which brands use Xinjiang cotton?

Amy Lehr, director of CSIS Human Rights Initiative, said in many cases Western companies aren’t buying directly from factories in Xinjiang.

“Rather, the products may go through several stages of transformation after leaving Xinjiang before they are sent to large Western brands,” she said.

Some, like Muji, are very open about sourcing material from Xinjiang.

The Japanese retail chain launched a new Xinjiang Cotton collection earlier this year.

One of its advertisements boasts “soft and breathable” men’s shirts made from organic cotton “delicately and wholly handpicked in Xinjiang”.

Another Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo had also touted the Xinjiang region in an advertisement advertisment for men’s shirts.

In the fine print of the shirt description, the advert said the shirts were made from Xinjiang cotton, “famous for its superb quality”.

That reference was later removed from the advertisement “given the complexity of this issue”, according to a spokesperson for Uniqlo.

“Uniqlo does not have any production partners located in the Xinjiang region. Moreover, Uniqlo production partners must commit to our strict company code of conduct.

“To the best of our knowledge, this means our cotton comes only from ethical sources,” the spokesperson told the BBC.

Pedestrians walk past a Japanese household and consumer goods retailer, Muji store in Shenzhen

According to the Wall Street Journal report which focused on workers at a mill operated by Huafu Fashion in Aksu, Xinjiang, yarn made in the region was present in the supply chains of several international retailers including H&M, Esprit and Adidas.

Many of the companies looked into the allegations, including those without clear links to the Huafu mill.

In a statement to the BBC, Adidas said: “While we do not have a contractual relationship with Huafu Fashion Co., or any direct leverage with this business entity or its subsidiary, we are currently investigating these claims.”

“We advised our material suppliers to place no orders with Huafu until we have completed those investigations,” the Adidas spokesperson said.

Esprit, which also does not source cotton directly from Xinjiang, said it had made several inquiries earlier this year.

“We concluded that a very small amount of cotton from a Huafu factory in Xinjiang was used in a limited number of Esprit garments,” the firm said in a statement.

The company has instructed all suppliers to not source Huafu yarn from Aksu, the statement said.

H&M said it does not have “a direct or indirect business relationship” with any garment manufacturer in the Xinjiang region.

“We have an indirect business relationship with Huafu’s spinning unit in Shanyu, which is not located in the Xinjiang region, and according to our data, the vast majority of the yarn used for our garment manufacturing comes from this spinning unit,” a spokesperson for H&M said.

“Since we have an indirect business relationship with the yarn supplier Huafu, we also asked for access to their spinning facilities in Aksu. Our investigations showed no evidence of forced labor.”

Source: The BBC

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11/11/2019

With Indian court ruling, Modi’s Hindu agenda barrels forward

AYODHYA/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Just six months after sweeping to re-election, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered on two major promises of his party’s Hindu agenda, electrifying his base but sowing unease among liberals and the nation’s large Muslim minority

The latest boost for Modi came on Saturday, when the Supreme Court handed Hindu groups control of a contested site where a 16th-century mosque was razed over two decades ago, paving the way for the construction of a temple there that has long been an election promise of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

That followed New Delhi’s move in August to strip Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir of its special status as a state in what Modi’s government said was a bid to integrate the restive region with the rest of predominantly-Hindu India.

Now, the BJP may move towards delivering on its third traditional plank: Creating a uniform civil code that does away with the independence of religious communities on certain issues.

RELATED COVERAGE

Factbox: What does India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party want to achieve?

“After just a few months of Modi 2.0, they’ve accomplished two out of three (main cultural objectives). It’s quite possible that they will accomplish all three by next year,” said Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C.

“It’s striking that the government has moved with a clarity of purpose on its social agenda that’s completely absent when it comes to economic matters,” added Vaishnav in reference to the slowing of the country’s once red-hot economic growth.

Many Muslims have watched with a mix of fear and resignation as the BJP has morphed into the officially secular country’s near-undisputed political force.

The controversial site in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has been one of the most explosive issues in the nation of 1.3 billion, where Muslims constitute about 14% of the population.

In 1992, a rally led by the BJP and affiliate organizations spiralled out of control and a Hindu mob destroyed the Babri Masjid or mosque in the city of Ayodhya. That triggered riots in which about 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed across the country.

In its verdict on Saturday, the Supreme Court called the mosque’s demolition illegal but handed the plot of land to Hindus, who believe the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram, a much venerated god-king. The court directed that another plot in Ayodhya be provided to a Muslim group that contested the case.

In over a dozen interviews, Muslim community leaders, businessmen, and students said they respected the verdict but it exacerbated their sense of alienation.

“Why did the court then give a ruling which is completely one-sided? Was the court under pressure? We don’t know. We can’t trust anyone now. No door is open for us,” said local Muslim community leader Azam Quadri during evening prayers in Ayodhya.

“BEST TO BE NUMB”

While Modi himself has said the court verdict should not be seen as a “win or loss” for anyone, many Muslims Reuters spoke to expressed resignation after the ruling.

Some were bitter that a probe into the demolition has inconclusively dragged on for three decades and that many of the politicians accused of conspiring to take down the mosque are prominent BJP members. Those people have said the demolition was spontaneous and not planned.

“I feel humiliated by the Supreme Court verdict,” said one affluent Mumbai-based Muslim businessman, who declined to give his name. “Others don’t care. They have become numb. It’s best to be numb in Modi’s India.”

Some people believe that Hindu nationalists, galvanized by the Ayodhya triumph, could turn their attention to two other Uttar Pradesh mosques they believe Mughal conquerors built over the remains of Hindu temples centuries ago.

“This (verdict) seems to generate incentives for Hindus to take down mosques and resettle,” said Neelanjan Sircar, an assistant professor at Ashoka University near New Delhi.

Another likely move is the uniform civil code.

New Delhi has already taken steps toward creating such a code, with the BJP-led parliament in July outlawing the centuries-old right of a Muslim man to instantly divorce his wife. While many activists thought the Muslim custom was wrong, some Muslim groups said Modi was targeting them while turning a blind eye to discrimination in Hindu society.

For a factbox on the BJP’s plans, please see:

Despite the focus on social issues, political analysts predict the government and the BJP will have to shift attention quickly to a sagging economy and surging unemployment or risk losing popular support.

India, long touted as the world’s fastest-growing large economy, has seen economic expansion wither to six-year lows.

Two college students – one Hindu, one Muslim – in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow separately said after the court verdict that they hoped the government would now focus on economic issues.

“This case has gone on for so long… Now that it’s done with altogether, maybe more economic issues can come forward”, said Rajat Mishra, a business student.

“Attention can now move beyond topics of religion,” said medical student Irfan, 22, who declined to give his surname.

Source: Reuters

Posted in Ayodhya, Babri Masjid, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), birthplace, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, court ruling, Hindu agenda, Indian, Lord Ram, Mosque, Muslims, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Uncategorized, Uttar Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh (UP | Leave a Comment »

31/10/2019

Jammu and Kashmir: India formally divides flashpoint state

India has formally divided the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two new federally-administered territories.

In the new arrangement, Jammu and Kashmir is one territory, and Ladakh, which borders China, is separate.

The two new union territories are now ruled directly from the capital Delhi.

It’s part of a controversial move announced in August to tighten the Indian government’s control over the part of Kashmir it administers.

R K Mathur and Girish Chandra Murmu were sworn in as lieutenant governors of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir respectively on Thursday.

“Now the real participation of co-operative federalism will be seen. New highways, new railway lines, new schools, new hospitals will take the development of the people of Jammu and Kashmir to new heights,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a public rally in the western state of Gujarat.

Union territories have far less autonomy from the federal government than states do.

The former state has long been one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints and is a highly militarised area.

India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir in full, but control only parts of it.

How does this affect the people there?

Almost 98% of the state’s population will be in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, comprising two regions – the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, which has about eight million people, and the Hindu-majority Jammu, which has about six million.

The third region, the newly created union territory of Ladakh, is a high-altitude desert inhabited by 300,000 people, with almost equal numbers of Muslims and Buddhists.

Workers from the previous state government will continue to retain their jobs in the new territories, the government said.

What’s the background?

On 5 August, the government revoked Kashmir’s special status, sparking protests in the Muslim-majority valley.

Article 370, as the constitutional provision guaranteeing special status was known, allowed the region a certain amount of autonomy, including special privileges in property ownership, education and jobs. This provision had underpinned India’s often fraught relationship with Kashmir.

Before the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government announced its decision to scrap the special status, it put the region under lockdown – mobile phone networks, landlines and the internet were cut off; and regional political leaders were placed under house arrest.

Media caption The children being ‘tortured’ in Kashmir

The region also witnessed protests where security forces often clashed with civilians. Thousands of activists and others were believed to have been picked up from their homes in the days that followed the surprise move.

Almost three months later, the situation is still far from normal.

On Tuesday, militants killed five migrant labourers in Kulgam district. Just a day before, a truck driver from outside the region was killed in Anantnag district.

In total, 11 such migrant workers have been killed by militants in the past two weeks.

Earlier this month, the Indian government restored mobile services 72 days after they were suspended.

But internet services continue to be suspended and most businesses remain closed – some in protest against the government, and others for fear of reprisals from militants opposed to Indian rule.

Source: The BBC

Posted in Anantnag district, autonomy, Bharatiya Janata Party, Buddhists, cut off, Delhi, divides, ederally-administered territories, federal government, flashpoint, formally, Gujarat, Hindu-majority Jammu, house arrest, India alert, Internet, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, landlines, militants, militarised area, mobile phone networks, Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, Muslims, new highways, new hospitals, new railway lines, new schools, political leaders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, reprisals, state, truck driver, Uncategorized, Union territories | Leave a Comment »

16/10/2019

Ayodhya dispute: The complex legal history of India’s holy site

In this file photograph taken on December 6, 1992 Hindu youths clamour atop the 16th century Muslim Babri Mosque five hours before the structure was completely demolished by hundreds supporting Hindu fundamentalist activists. — Image caption The dispute turned to violence in 1992 when a Hindu mob destroyed a mosque at the site

The Ayodhya dispute, which stretches back more than a century, is one of India’s thorniest court cases and goes to the heart of its identity politics.

Hindus believe that Ayodhya, a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is the birthplace of one of their most revered deities, Lord Ram.

But Muslims say they have worshipped there for generations.

A court case pertaining to the ownership of the land has been dragging on in the Supreme Court for years, but a verdict is expected next month.

The court concluded its final hearing into the case on Wednesday.

What is the row actually about?

At the centre of the row is a 16th Century mosque that was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots that killed nearly 2,000 people.

Many Hindus believe that the Babri Masjid was actually constructed on the ruins of a Hindu temple that was demolished by Muslim invaders.

Muslims say they offered prayers at the mosque until December 1949 when some Hindus placed an idol of Ram in the mosque and began to worship the idols.

Over the decades since, the two religious groups have gone to court many times over who should control the site.

Since then, there have been calls to build a temple on the spot where the mosque once stood.

The case currently being heard by five judges in the top court is to determine who the land in question belongs to.

A verdict is expected between 4 and 15 November.

Hinduism is India’s majority religion and is thought to be more than 4,000 years old. India’s first Islamic dynasty was established in the early 13th Century.

Who is fighting the case?

The long and complicated property dispute has been dragging in various courts for more than a century.

This particular case is being fought between three main parties – two Hindu groups and the Muslim Waqf Board, which is responsible for the maintenance of Islamic properties in India.

Ramu Ramdev, OSD at the City Palace, points out Lord Ramas birth place in an old dilapidated map of Ayodhya depicting the birthplace of Lord Rama, being taken out from archives of erstwhile royal family of Jaipur, at City Palace, on August 11, 2019 in Jaipur, India.

The Hindu litigants are the Hindu Mahasabha, a right-wing political party, and the Nirmohi Akhara, which is a sect of Hindu monks.

They filed a title dispute in the Allahabad High Court in 2002, a decade after the mosque was demolished.

A verdict in that case was pronounced in September 2010 – it determined that the 2.77 acres of the disputed land would be divided equally into three parts.

The court ruled that the site should be split, with the Muslim community getting control of a third, Hindus another third and the Nirmohi Akhara sect the remainder. Control of the main disputed section, where the mosque once stood, was given to Hindus.

The judgement also made three key observations.

It affirmed the disputed spot was the birthplace of Lord Ram, that the Babri Masjid was built after the demolition of a Hindu temple and that it was not built in accordance with the tenets of Islam.

The Supreme Court suspended this ruling in 2011 after both Hindu and Muslim groups appealed against it.

What are the other important legal developments?

In 1994 the Supreme Court, which was ruling on a related case, remarked that the concept of a mosque was “not integral to Islam”. This has bolstered the case made by Hindus who want control of the entire site.

In April 2018, senior lawyer Rajeev Dhavan filed a plea before the top court, asking judges to reconsider this observation.

But a few months later the Supreme Court declined to do so.

VHP saints at Karsevak Puram taking park in Hindu Swabhiman Sammelan organized by the VHP to mark 25th anniversary Babri Masjid demolition, on December 6, 2017 in Ayodhya — Image caption Hindu activists are demanding the construction of the Ram Temple

Have religious tensions eased in India in recent years?

Ever since the Narendra Modi-led Hindu nationalist BJP first came to power in 2014, India has seen deepening social and religious divisions.

The call for the construction of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya has grown particularly loud, and has mostly come from MPs, ministers and leaders from the BJP since it took office.

Restrictions on the sale and slaughter of cows – considered a holy animal by the majority Hindus – have led to vigilante killings of a number of people, most of them Muslims who were transporting cattle.

An uninhibited display of muscular Hindu nationalism in other areas has also contributed to religious tension.

Most recently, the country’s home minister Amit Shah said he would remove “illegal migrants” – understood to be Muslim – from the country through a government scheme that was used recently in the north-eastern state of Assam.

Source: The BBC

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29/09/2019

China anniversary: The deep cuts of 70 years of Communist rule

Children waving Chinese flags — Image caption China’s version of its past is a story of prosperity, progress and sacrifice for the common good

China’s extraordinary rise was a defining story of the 20th Century, but as it prepares to mark its 70th anniversary, the BBC’s John Sudworth in Beijing asks who has really won under the Communist Party’s rule.

Sitting at his desk in the Chinese city of Tianjin, Zhao Jingjia’s knife is tracing the contours of a face.

Cut by delicate cut, the form emerges – the unmistakable image of Mao Zedong, founder of modern China.

The retired oil engineer discovered his skill with a blade only in later life and now spends his days using the ancient art of paper cutting to glorify leaders and events from China’s communist history.

“I’m the same age as the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” he says. “I have deep feelings for my motherland, my people and my party.”

Zhao Jingjia with a paper cut of Mao Zedong — Image caption For people like Zhao Jingjia, China’s success outweighs the “mistakes” of its leaders

Born a few days before 1 October 1949 – the day the PRC was declared by Mao – Mr Zhao’s life has followed the dramatic contours of China’s development, through poverty, repression and the rise to prosperity.

Now, in his modest but comfortable apartment, his art is helping him make sense of one of the most tumultuous periods of human history.

“Wasn’t Mao a monster,” I ask, “responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his countrymen?”

“I lived through it,” he replies. “I can tell you that Chairman Mao did make some mistakes but they weren’t his alone.”

“I respect him from my heart. He achieved our nation’s liberation. Ordinary people cannot do such things.”

On Tuesday, China will present a similar, glorious rendering of its record to the world.

The country is staging one of its biggest ever military parades, a celebration of 70 years of Communist Party rule as pure, political triumph.

Beijing will tremble to the thunder of tanks, missile launchers and 15,000 marching soldiers, a projection of national power, wealth and status watched over by the current Communist Party leader, President Xi Jinping, in Tiananmen Square.

An incomplete narrative of progress

Like Mr Zhao’s paper-cut portraits, we’re not meant to focus on the many individual scars made in the course of China’s modern history.

It is the end result that matters.

Mao Zedong declares the People's Republic of China in Beijing on 1 Oct 1949 — Image caption Mao Zedong pronounces the dawn of the People’s Republic of China on 1 October 1949

And, on face value, the transformation has been extraordinary.

On 1 October 1949, Chairman Mao stood in Tiananmen Square urging a war-ravaged, semi-feudal state into a new era with a founding speech and a somewhat plodding parade that could muster only 17 planes for the flyby.

This week’s parade, in contrast, will reportedly feature the world’s longest range intercontinental nuclear missile and a supersonic spy-drone – the trophies of a prosperous, rising authoritarian superpower with a 400 million strong middle class.

It is a narrative of political and economic success that – while in large part true – is incomplete.

New visitors to China are often, rightly, awe-struck by the skyscraper-festooned, hi-tech megacities connected by brand new highways and the world’s largest high-speed rail network.

Shanghai skyline — Image caption Those in China’s glittering cities may accept the trade-off of political freedom for economic growth

They see a rampant consumer society with the inhabitants enjoying the freedom and free time to shop for designer goods, to dine out and to surf the internet.

“How bad can it really be?” the onlookers ask, reflecting on the negative headlines they’ve read about China back home.

The answer, as in all societies, is that it depends very much on who you are.

Many of those in China’s major cities, for example, who have benefited from this explosion of material wealth and opportunity, are genuinely grateful and loyal.

In exchange for stability and growth, they may well accept – or at least tolerate – the lack of political freedom and the censorship that feature so often in the foreign media.

For them the parade could be viewed as a fitting tribute to a national success story that mirrors their own.

But in the carving out of a new China, the knife has cut long and deep.

The dead, the jailed and the marginalised

Mao’s man-made famine – a result of radical changes to agricultural systems – claimed tens of millions of lives and his Cultural Revolution killed hundreds of thousands more in a decade-long frenzy of violence and persecution, truths that are notably absent from Chinese textbooks.

Archive image of a starving woman and child during the famine in China — Image caption Tens of millions starved to death under Mao, as China radically restructured agriculture and society

After his death, the demographically calamitous One Child Policy brutalised millions over a 40-year period.

Still today, with its new Two Child Policy, the Party insists on violating that most intimate of rights – an individual’s choice over her fertility.

The list is long, with each category adding many thousands, at least, to the toll of those damaged or destroyed by one-party rule.

Chinese baby in front of Chinese flag — Image caption Beijing still regulates how many children families can have

There are the victims of religious repression, of local government land-grabs and of corruption.

There are the tens of millions of migrant workers, the backbone of China’s industrial success, who have long been shut out of the benefits of citizenship.

A strict residential permit system continues to deny them and their families the right to education or healthcare where they work.

And in recent years, there are the estimated one and a half million Muslims in China’s western region of Xinjiang – Uighurs, Kazakhs and others – who have been placed in mass incarceration camps on the basis of their faith and ethnicity.

China continues to insist they are vocational schools, and that it is pioneering a new way of preventing domestic terrorism.

The stories of the dead, the jailed and the marginalised are always much more hidden than the stories of the assimilated and the successful.

Viewed from their perspective, the censorship of large parts of China’s recent history is not simply part of a grand bargain to be exchanged for stability and prosperity.

People holding pictures of Mao and the Little Red Book in Tiananmen Square, 1966

Getty

Timeline of modern China

1949 Mao declares the founding of the People’s Republic of China
1966-76 Cultural Revolution brings social and political upheaval
1977 Deng Xiaoping initiates major reforms of China’s economy
1989 Army crushes Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests
2010 China becomes the world’s second-largest economy
2018 Xi Jinping is cleared to be president for life

It is something that makes the silence of their suffering all the more difficult to penetrate.

It is the job of foreign journalists, of course, to try.

‘Falsified, faked and glorified’

But while censorship can shut people up, it cannot stop them remembering.

Prof Guo Yuhua, a sociologist at Beijing’s Tsinghua University, is one of the few scholars left trying to record, via oral histories, some of the huge changes that have affected Chinese society over the past seven decades.

Her books are banned, her communications monitored and her social media accounts are regularly deleted.

“For several generations people have received a history that has been falsified, faked, glorified and whitewashed,” she tells me, despite having been warned not to talk to the foreign media ahead of the parade.

“I think it requires the entire nation to re-study and to reflect on history. Only if we do that can we ensure that these tragedies won’t be repeated.”

People with poster of Mao Zedong — Image caption Can progress really be attributed to the leadership?

A parade, she believes, that puts the Communist Party at the front and centre of the story, misses the real lesson, that China’s progress only began after Mao, when the party loosened its grip a bit.

“People are born to strive for a better, happier and more respectful life, aren’t they?” she asks me.

“If they are provided with a tiny little space, they’ll try to make a fortune and solve their survival problems. This shouldn’t be attributed to the leadership.”

‘Our happiness comes from hard work’

As if to prove the point about how the unsettled, censored pasts of authoritarian states continue to impact the present, the parade is for invited guests only.

Mao's portrait hanging in Tiananmen Square — Image caption Mao’s portrait will, as it always is, be watching over the events in Tiananmen Square

Another anniversary, of which Tiananmen Square is the centrepiece, is also being measured in multiples of 10 – it is 30 years since the bloody suppression of the pro-democracy protests that shook the foundations of Communist Party rule.

The troops will be marching – as they always do on these occasions – down the same avenue on which the students were gunned down.

The risk of even a lone protester using the parade to mark a piece of history that has largely been wiped from the record is just too great.

With central Beijing sealed off, ordinary people in whose honour it is supposedly being held, can only watch it on TV.

Back in his Tianjin apartment, Zhao Jingjia shows me the intricate detail of a series of scenes, each cut from a single piece of paper, depicting the “Long March”, a time of hardship and setback for the Communist Party long before it eventually swept to power.

“Our happiness nowadays comes from hard work,” he tells me.

It is a view that echoes that of the Chinese government which, like him, has at least acknowledged that Mao made mistakes while insisting they shouldn’t be dwelt on.

“As for the 70 years of China, it’s extraordinary,” he says. “It can be seen by all. Yesterday we sent two navigation satellites into space – all citizens can enjoy the convenience that these things bring us.”

Media caption What was China’s Cultural Revolution?

Source: The BBC

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31/08/2019

Assam NRC: What next for 1.9 million ‘stateless’ Indians?

Final Draft of National Register of Citizens of India (NRC) released on July 30, 2018 — Image caption Four million people were stripped of their citizenship in the draft list last July

India has published the final version of a list which effectively strips about 1.9 million people in the north-eastern state of Assam of their citizenship.

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is a list of people who can prove they came to the state by 24 March 1971, the day before neighbouring Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan.

People left off the list will have 120 days to appeal against their exclusion.

It is unclear what happens next.

India says the process is needed to identify illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

It has already detained thousands of people suspected of being foreigners in temporary camps which are housed in the state’s prisons, but deportation is currently not an option for the country.

The process has also sparked criticism of “witch hunts” against Assam’s ethnic minorities.

A draft version of the list published last year had four million people excluded.

What is the registry of citizens?

The NRC was created in 1951 to determine who was born in Assam and is therefore Indian, and who might be a migrant from neighbouring Bangladesh.

The register has been updated for the first time.

Indian worker of National Register of Citizens (NRC) office checks different documents which were submitted by people for NRC ahead of the release of the final draft of NRC in Guwahati, Assam, India, 26 August 2019. — Image caption The NRC was created in 1951 to determine who was born in the state and is Indian

Families in the state have been required to provide documentation to show their lineage, with those who cannot prove their citizenship deemed illegal foreigners.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has long railed against illegal immigration in India but has made the NRC a priority in recent years.

An anxious wait

By Rajini Vaidyanathan, BBC News, Assam

A small community centre in the village of Katajhar is being guarded by two members of the Indian army. Outside, a line of people wait. Some are clutching plastic bags containing documents.

As they enter one of two rooms, an official runs his eyes down a print-out to see if their names or photos are on it. This list – the National Register of Citizens – is one with huge consequences. And so there’s fear and trepidation as people here find out whether they’ve been included.

Many here who haven’t made it tell me it’s a mistake as they show me paperwork they say proves they belong in this country.

None of Asia Khatun’s family of nine made the list. They now have the chance to appeal but there’s real fear about what might come next. “I’d rather die than go to a detention centre,” she tells me. People here are angry but they’re also scared.

Why is the registry happening in Assam?

Assam is one India’s most multi-ethnic states. Questions of identity and citizenship have long vexed a vast number of people living there.

Among its residents are Bengali and Assamese-speaking Hindus, as well as a medley of tribespeople.

A third of the state’s 32 million residents are Muslims, the second-highest number after Indian-administered Kashmir. Many of them are descendants of immigrants who settled there under British rule.

But illegal migration from neighbouring Bangladesh, which shares a 4,000-km long border with India, has been a concern there for decades now. The government said in 2016 that an estimated 20 million illegal immigrants were living in India.

So have 1.9 million people effectively become stateless?

Not quite. Residents excluded from the list can appeal to the specially formed courts called Foreigners Tribunals, as well as the high court and Supreme Court.

However, a potentially long and exhaustive appeals process will mean that India’s already overburdened courts will be further clogged, and poor people left off the list will struggle to raise money to fight their cases.

In this photo taken on August 29, 2019, Saheb Ali, 55, poses for a photograph at his home in Khutamari village in Goalpara district, some 160km from Guwahati, the capital city of India's north-eastern state of Assam — Image caption Saheb Ali, 55, from Goalpara district, has not been included in the list

If people lose their appeals in higher courts, they could be detained indefinitely.

Some 1,000 people declared as foreigners earlier are already lodged in six detention centres located in prisons. Mr Modi’s government is also building an exclusive detention centre, which can hold 3,000 detainees.

“People whose names are not on the final list are really anxious about what lies ahead. One of the reasons is that the Foreigners Tribunal does not have a good reputation, and many people are worried that they will have to go through this process,” Sangeeta Barooah Pisharoty, author of Assam: The Accord, The Discord, told the BBC.

Why have been the courts so controversial?

The special courts were first set up in 1964, and since then they have declared more than 100,000 people foreigners. They regularly identify “doubtful voters” or “illegal infiltrators” as foreigners to be deported.

But the workings of the specially formed Foreigners Tribunals, which have been hearing the contested cases, have been mired in controversy.

There are more than 200 such courts in Assam today, and their numbers are expected to go up to 1,000 by October. The majority of these tribunals were set up after the BJP came to power in 2014.

The courts have been accused of bias and their workings have often been opaque and riddled with inconsistencies.

Media caption Living in limbo: Assam’s four million unwanted

For one thing, the burden of proof is on the accused or the alleged foreigner.

For another, many families are unable to produce documents due to poor record-keeping, illiteracy or because they lack the money to file a legal claim.

People have been declared foreigners by the courts because of differences in spellings of names or ages in voter rolls, and problems in getting identity documents certified by authorities. Amnesty International has described the work by the special courts as “shoddy and lackadaisical”.

Journalist Rohini Mohan analysed more than 500 judgements by these courtsin one district and found 82% of the people on trial had been declared foreigners. She also found more Muslims had been declared foreigners, and 78% of the orders were delivered without the accused being ever heard – the police said they were “absconding”, but Mohan found many of them living in their villages and unaware they had been declared foreigners.

“The Foreigners Tribunal,” she says, “must be made more transparent and accountable.”

A decorated Indian army veteran, Mohammed Sanaullah spent 11 days in a detention camp in June after being declared a “foreigner”, prompting national outrage.

Both the citizen’s register and the tribunals have also sparked fears of a witch hunt against Assam’s ethnic minorities.

Have the minorities been targeted?

Many say the list has nothing to do with religion, but activists see it as targeting the state’s Bengali community, a large portion of whom are Muslims.

They also point to the plight of Rohingya Muslims in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Activists in Assam take part in a protest against the a bill that seeks to give Hindu migrants more rights. — Image caption The move to make millions of people stateless will probably spark protests

However significant numbers of Bengali-speaking Hindus have also been left off the citizenship list, underscoring the communal and ethnic tensions in the state

“One of the communities worst affected by the list are the Bengali Hindus. There are as many of them in detention camps as Muslims. This is also the reason just days before NRC is to be published the BJP has changed tack, from taking credit for it to calling it error-ridden. That is because the Bengali Hindus are a strong voter base of the BJP,” says Barooah Pisharoty.

The human tragedy

Fearing possible loss of citizenship and detention after exclusion from the list, scores of Bengali Hindus and Muslims have killed themselves since the process to update the citizen register started in 2015, activists say.

And in an echo of US President Donald Trump’s policy to separate undocumented parents and children, families have been similarly broken up in Assam.

Detainees have complained of poor living conditions and overcrowding in the detention centres.

Bhaben Das' family get ready to perform his final rites — Image caption A father and son killed themselves 30 years apart because of citizenship doubts (photo shows funeral)

One detainee told a rights group after his release he had been taken to a room which had a capacity for 40 people, but was filled with around 120 people. People who have been declared foreigners as well as many inmates have been suffering from depression. Children have also been detained with their parents.

Human rights activist Harsh Mander, who visited two detention centres, has spoken about a situation of “grave and extensive human distress and suffering”.

What happens to people who are declared foreigners?

The BJP which rules the state, has insisted in the past that illegal Muslim immigrants will be deported. But neighbouring Bangladesh will definitely not accede to such a request.

Many believe that India will end up creating the newest cohort of stateless people, raising the spectre of a homegrown crisis that will echo that of the Rohingya people who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh.

It is not clear whether the people stripped of their Indian citizenship will be able to access welfare or own property.

One possibility is that once they are released, they will be given work permits with some basic rights, but will not be allowed to vote.

Source: The BBC

Posted in 'stateless' Indians, Amnesty International, Assam, Assam: The Accord, The Discord, Bangladesh, basic rights, Bengali, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), citizenship, controversy, deportation, depression, detention centre, ethnic minorities, Foreigners Tribunals, Goalpara district, Hindus, illegal immigration, Indian Kashmir, Katajhar, Muslims, Myanmar, National Register of Citizens, National Register of Citizens (NRC), Pakistan, paperwork, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, religion, Rohingya Muslims, special courts, state's prisons, tribespeople, Uncategorized, US President Donald Trump, witch hunts, work permits | Leave a Comment »

21/07/2019

Uygurs in Xinjiang didn’t choose to be Muslims, China says in white paper

Islam was forced on ethnic group ‘by religious wars and the ruling class’, Beijing says in latest report defending its actions in far western region
Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks, document says

Beijing has issued a white paper seemingly designed to defend its actions in Xinjiang where as least 1 million Uygurs are being held in detention centres. Photo: AFP

Uygurs became Muslims not by choice but by force, and Islam is not their only religion, Beijing said in a white paper published on Sunday, as it continued its propaganda campaign to justify its controversial policies in the far western province of

Xinjiang

“The Uygur people adopted Islam not of their own volition … but had it forced upon them by religious wars and the ruling class,” according to the document released by the State Council Information Office.

Islamic beliefs were forced on the Uygurs during the expansion of Arabic states. This is a historical fact, the report said, though that did not undermine the Uygurs’ religious rights now.

The report said also that there are Uygurs who hold to faiths other than Islam, and others who do not practise any religion at all.

The paper also took aim at the Uygurs’s historic links with Turkey.

“Historically, the Uygurs’ ancestors were enslaved by the Turks,” it said, citing a history of conflicts between the two groups dating back to the 8th century.

China promotes Xinjiang as tourist idyll

The white paper was issued amid a campaign by Beijing to justify its policies in the restive region, which is home to more than 10 million Uygurs, most whom are Muslim.

Earlier this month, the ambassadors of 22 countries signed a letter calling on Beijing to halt its mass detention of Uygurs in Xinjiang, the first such joint move on the issue at the UN Human Rights Council.

The signatories included envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, Japan and Switzerland. The United States, which quit the forum a year ago, did not sign the letter.

China responded by issuing a letter signed by the ambassadors of 37 countries, including several Muslim majority states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, backing its policies in the region.

Beijing said the show of support was “a powerful response to the groundless accusations made against China by a small number of Western countries”.

UN experts and activists say at least 1 million Uygurs and other Muslims are currently being held in detention centres in Xinjiang. China describes the facilities as training and education centres that aim to stamp out religious extremism and provide people with useful skills. It has never said how many people are being detained in them.

The United States has repeatedly criticised Beijing over its policies in Xinjiang.

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump met victims of religious persecution from around the world, including Jewher Ilham, a Uygur woman whose father Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 after being found guilty of promoting separatism.

“That’s tough stuff,” Trump said after hearing Ilham’s account of her father’s ordeal.

China describes the detention camps in Xinjiang as training and education centres. Photo: AFP

In January, US lawmakers nominated the imprisoned economist, writer and former professor at Minzu University in Beijing, for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in a bid to pressure China to stop its crackdown on the minority group.

Sunday’s white paper is the latest in a string of similar documents published recently by Beijing as it seeks to defend the legitimacy of its policies in Xinjiang. In a document issued in March, it said that over the past five years it had arrested nearly 13,000 “terrorists” in the region.

Xinjiang camps defended at UN human rights forum

Neither the March report nor Sunday’s white paper mentioned Beijing’s other controversial policies in the region, such as the collection of DNA samples and extensive surveillance on local people.

“Xinjiang has borrowed from international experiences, combined them with local realities, and taken resolute measures against terrorism and extremism,” it said.

The measures have been effective, it said, though did not elaborate.

Over the past year, China has increased its efforts to defend the camps, including organising strictly controlled visits by selected diplomats and journalists to see the people who live in them.

State media has also released videos showing seemingly happy and healthy people inside the camps in a bid to counter accounts of harsh conditions and abuse published by the Western media.

Source: SCMP

Posted in Arabic states, Australia, Beijing, Britain, canada, ethnic groups, forum, France, Germany, islam, Japan, Minzu University, Muslims, Nobel Peace Prize, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, State Council Information Office, Switzerland, Turkey, Turks, UN human rights forum, Uncategorized, United States, US President Donald Trump, Uygurs, Xinjiang | Leave a Comment »

11/06/2019

Huawei: ‘We stand naked in front of the world’

Image copyrightAFP

Huawei has denied that it has any links to the Chinese government.

Huawei’s cyber-security chief John Suffolk told MPs on Monday that the tech giant had never been asked by China or any other government to “do anything untoward”.

Mr Suffolk said Huawei welcomed outsiders to analyse its products and detect engineering or coding flaws.

“We stand naked in front of the world, but we would prefer to do that, because it enables us to improve our products.”

He added: “We want people to find things, whether they find one or one thousand, we don’t care. We are not embarrassed by what people find.”

Huawei was invited to the Technology and Science Select Committee to answer questions from MPs on the security of its equipment, and its links to the Chinese government.

The US has encouraged allies to block Huawei – the world’s largest maker of telecoms equipment – from their 5G networks, saying the Chinese government could use its products for surveillance.

Huawei cyber-security chief John Suffolk — Image caption Huawei’s cyber-security chief John Suffolk said the tech giant has no access to mobile networks

“We’ve never had a request from the Chinese government to do anything untoward at all,” said Mr Suffolk.

“We have never been asked by the Chinese government or any other government, I might add, to do anything that would weaken the security of a product.”

MPs raised concerns about Chinese human rights abuses, such as reports that up to a million Muslims are in detention centres in Xinjiang province.

They asked whether Huawei was required to provide equipment to Xinjiang province, especially in light of the 2017 Chinese intelligence law, which requires individuals and associations to comply with Chinese intelligent agencies.

Mr Suffolk said: “We have had to go through a period of clarification with the Chinese government, that has come out and made it quite clear that that is not the requirement of any company.

“We’ve had that validated via our lawyers and revalidated by Clifford Chance…according to our legal advice, that does not require Huawei to undertake anything that weakens Huawei’s position in terms of security.”

Remote access

MPs asked whether Huawei would be able to remotely access the UK’s 5G mobile networks via its equipment.

A woman using 5G to access the internet on her smartphone — Image caption Huawei said it would have no access to any data on a 5G mobile network

In reply, Mr Suffolk stressed that Huawei is a provider of telecommunications equipment to mobile network operators.

“We don’t run networks, and because we don’t run the network, we have no access to any of the data that is running across that network,” he said.

He also explained that Huawei is only one of about 200 vendors who would be providing various different bits of equipment that would eventually make up a 5G network in the UK.

However, if an operator were to have a problem with Huawei equipment, a support centre based in Romania would be able to remotely access the equipment to fix the problem.

MPs wanted to know whether it would be possible for a 5G network to be used to track an individual user.

In response, Mr Suffolk explained that mobile phone technology requires the mobile operator to constantly track a user’s phone, in order to be able to connect them to the mobile network.

By that logic, the operator is constantly tracking all of its customers, all the time.

He also told MPs that only about 30% of the the components in Huawei products are actually made by the company – the rest of the components are obtained from a global supply chain that Huawei closely monitors in order to prevent security breaches.

Source: The BBC

Posted in 5G mobile networks, chinese government, Chinese human rights abuses, Chinese intelligence law, Chinese intelligent agencies, Clifford Chance, Huawei, mobile network operators, Muslims, naked, Romania, security breaches, Technology and Science Select Committee, Telecommunications equipment, Uncategorized, World, Xinjiang | Leave a Comment »

05/06/2019

Xinjiang’s vanishing mosques highlight pressure on China’s Muslims as Ramadan ends with a whimper

Few signs of Eid celebrations after crackdown that has seen a reported million Uygurs and other minorities interned in camps
Muslims in far western Chinese region say they are now ‘too scared’ to practise their faith in public

Worshippers leave a mosque in Kasghar after prayers on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

The corner where Heyitkah mosque in China’s far western region of Xinjiang once hummed with life is now a car park where all traces of the tall, domed building have been erased.

While Muslims around the world celebrated the end of Ramadan with prayers and festivities this week, the recent destruction of dozens of mosques in Xinjiang highlights the increasing pressure Uygurs and other ethnic minorities face in the heavily policed region.

Behind the car park in the city of Hotan, the slogan “Educate the people for the party” is emblazoned in red on the wall of a primary school where students must scan their faces upon entering the razor-wired gates.

The mosque “was beautiful,” recalled a vendor at a nearby bazaar. “There were a lot of people there.”

Satellite images reviewed by AFP and visual analysis non-profit Earthrise Alliance show that 36 mosques and religious sites have been torn down or had their domes and corner spires removed since 2017.

Satellite images from 2014 (top) and March this year show the disappearance of the dome of the Karamay West Mosque in Xinjiang. Photo: AFP/ Distribution Airbus Defence and Space/ CNES 2019/ Produced By Earthrise

In the mosques that are open, worshippers go through metal detectors while surveillance cameras monitor them inside.

“The situation here is very strict, it takes a toll on my heart,” said one Uygur, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “I don’t go any more,” he added, referring to mosques. “I’m scared.”

In the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, no longer does the sunrise call for prayer echo throughout the city – a ritual the manager of the city’s central mosque once proudly shared with touristsOn Wednesday, locals celebrating Eid al-Fitr quietly filed into the entrance of state-approved Idkah Mosque – one of the largest in China – as police and officials fenced off the wide square surrounding the building and plain clothes men monitored every person’s actions.

It was another low-key Ramadan for Muslims in Xinjiang, where restaurants were busy serving food to customers throughout the day, a time when practising Muslims fast.

In Hotan on Friday – a holy day for believers – the only mosque in the city was empty after sundown, an important prayer session when Muslim families typically break their daily Ramadan fast.

Earlier in the day, at least 100 people attended a midday session but the vast majority were elderly men.

Human Rights Watch decodes surveillance app used to classify people in China’s Xinjiang region

The ruling Communist Party “sees religion as this existential threat”, said James Leibold, an expert on ethnic relations and policy in China at La Trobe University.

Over the long term, the Chinese government wants to achieve “the secularisation of Chinese society,” he told AFP.

The Xinjiang government told AFP that it “protects religious freedoms” and citizens can celebrate Ramadan “within the scope permitted by law”, without elaborating.

The authorities have thrown a hi-tech security net across the region, installing cameras, mobile police stations and checkpoints in seemingly every street in response to a spate of deadly attacks blamed on Islamic extremists and separatists in recent years.

An estimated one million Uygurs and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups are held in a vast network of internment camps.

After initially denying their existence, Chinese authorities last year acknowledged that they run “vocational education centres” aimed at steering people clear of religious extremism by teaching them Mandarin and China’s laws.

In those centres, it was a different Ramadan.

The Xinjiang government told AFP that people in the centres are not allowed to hold religious activities because Chinese law forbids it within education facilities, but they are free to do so “when they return home on weekends”.

Uygur men dance after Eid al-Fitr prayers in Kashgar. Photo: Greg Baker/ AFP

In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up controls on public displays of religion and Islamic traditions in Xinjiang.

AFP reporters did not see any veiled women and few men sporting long beards during a week-long visit to the region. Former internment camp inmates have said they were incarcerated for these outward signs of their religion.

Places of worship too have become targets of Beijing’s draconian security measures.

Human Rights Watch decodes surveillance app used to classify people in China’s Xinjiang region

In the satellite images analysed by AFP and Earthrise Alliance, 30 religious sites were completely demolished while six had their domes and corner spires removed.

AFP reporters visited about half a dozen sites, and found that some mosques had been repurposed into public spaces.

Police officers blocked journalists from entering Artux, just north of Kashgar, where the town’s grand mosque and dozens of other community mosques were destroyed.

The area is some 22 kilometres (14 miles) away from an enormous complex believed to be a re-education centre. Visible from a nearby village, the facility has razor-wired walls, watchtowers and imposing block buildings.In Kashgar, two cameras perched on the columns of a former mosque point at its entrance. There is no minaret or dome – instead, a shop selling dresses lies to its right alongside houses.

A demolished mosque in Hotan has been converted into a garden, paved with concrete walkways and sparsely planted trees.

On the outskirts of town, situated between a cemetery and sand dunes, two white flags and a pile of burned refuse and debris was all that was left of an old shrine named Imam Asim.

China’s top Xinjiang official Chen Quanguo should face sanctions over alleged abuses, US lawmakers say

Uygurs consider these mosques and shrines “their ancestral heritage,” said Omer Kanat, director of the Uygur Human Rights Project.

“The Chinese government just wants to erase everything … that is different from Han, everything which belongs to Uygur culture or Islamic culture in the region,” he said.

Juma Maimaiti, the official imam of Idkah Mosque, told AFP in an interview arranged by the propaganda department that the demolition of mosques “has never happened here”.

“But our government has proceeded to protect some key mosques,” he added, and said that the city of Kashgar has over 150 mosques.

A propaganda slogan and surveillance camera at a mosque in Yangisar, south of Kashgar. Photo: AFP

Though Beijing’s restrictions on religious piety, such as fasting, are not new, observers say conditions have deteriorated to the point where celebrations for the holy month in Xinjiang are reduced or largely invisible.

Islamic greetings and openly fasting in public are no longer permitted, said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who focuses on Uygur culture.

While there are Uygurs who continue to practise their faith, they are “internalising it at this moment – they’re not expressing it openly,” he said.

EU calls out Beijing on human rights but activists want harder line against China’s Xinjiang and Tibet policy

At state-backed mosques, religious activity is controlled as Beijing pursues a five-year plan to “Sinicise” Islam as the “only way for a healthy development of Islam” in the country, said Yang Faming, president.

Source: SCMP

Posted in Artux, Beijing, chinese government, Chinese Society, dome, draconian security measures, Earthrise Alliance, Eid al-Fitr prayers, Eid celebrations, Heyitkah mosque, Hotan, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Idkah Mosque, Kasghar, minaret, Mosque, Muslims, Ramadan, secularisation, Silk Road, Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, Uncategorized, Uygur Human Rights Project, Uygurs, vanishing mosques, Xinjiang | Leave a Comment »

22/05/2019

In an Indian village, Muslims talk of leaving as divide with Hindus widens

NAYABANS, India (Reuters) – Muslims in Nayabans, an unremarkable village in northern India, say they remember a time when their children played with Hindu youths, and people from either faith chatted when they frequented each other’s shops and went to festivals together.

Such interactions no longer happen, many say, because of how polarized the two communities have become in the past two years, and some are frightened and thinking of moving away – if they can afford it.

Muslim residents who spoke to Reuters said they thought tensions would only worsen if Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) wins a second term in the current general election, as exit polls released on Sunday indicate is likely. Votes will be counted Thursday.

“Things were very good earlier. Muslims and Hindus were together in good and bad times, weddings to deaths. Now we live our separate ways despite living in the same village,” said Gulfam Ali, who runs a small shop selling bread and tobacco.

Modi came to power in 2014 and the BJP took control of Uttar Pradesh state, which includes Nayabans, in 2017, partly on the back of a Hindu-first message. The state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, is a hardline Hindu priest and senior BJP figure.

“Modi and Yogi have messed it up,” said Ali. “Dividing Hindus and Muslims is their main agenda, only agenda. It was never like this earlier. We want to leave this place but can’t really do that.”

He says about a dozen Muslim families have left in the past two years, including his uncle.

The BJP denies its policies have stoked community divisions.

COW KILLING

At the end of last year, Nayabans, a village of wheatfields, narrow cemented streets, bullock carts and loitering cows, became a symbol of India’s deepening divide as some Hindu men from the area complained they had seen a group of Muslims slaughtering cows, which Hindus regard as sacred.

Angry Hindus accused police of failing to stop an illegal practice, and a Hindu mob blocked a highway, threw stones and burned vehicles. Two people were shot and killed – including a police officer.

Five months later many Muslims, who only number about 400 of the village’s population of more than 4,000, say the wounds haven’t healed.

And in a country where 14 percent of the population are Muslim and 80 percent Hindu, Nayabans reflects wider tensions in places where Muslim residents are heavily outnumbered by Hindu neighbours.

The BJP denies it is seeking to make Muslims second-class citizens or is anti-Muslim.

“There have been no riots in the country under this government. It’s wrong to label criminal incidents, which we denounce, as Hindu-Muslim issues,” BJP spokesman Gopal Krishna Agarwal said.

“The opposition has been playing communal politics but we believe in neutrality of governance. Neither appeasement of any, nor denouncement of any. Some people may be finding that they are not being appeased anymore.”

CALL TO PRAYER

To be sure, villagers say Nayabans was not free of conflict in the past – attempts to build a mosque in 1977 led to communal riots in which two people were killed. But for the 40 years after that there had been relative harmony, villagers say.

Some Muslim residents said Hindu hardliners started asserting themselves more in the village after Yogi took office in March 2017.

The atmosphere worsened around the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in 2017 – Hindu activists demanded Muslims stop using a microphone in their madrasa, which also acts as a mosque, to call people to prayer, arguing it disturbed the whole community.

The Muslims reluctantly agreed to stop using the mike and speaker – even though they say it had been operating for many years – to keep the peace, but the move created deep resentment.

Some Hindus were unsympathetic.

“God knows what they are moaning about,” said Hindu elder Om Prakash, a 63-year-old tailor. “There’s peace here but we won’t tolerate any mike there. That’s a madrasa, not a mosque.”

Islam requires the faithful to pray five times a day. Without the reminder of hearing the call, some Muslim residents say they risk missing prayer times.

“We can’t express our religion in any way here, but they are free to do whatever they want,” said Muslim law student Aisha, 21.

She said that Hindu men from the village often shouted anti-Muslim slogans during festival processions. At least a dozen Hindus in the village denied that was the case.

Aisha remembers when relations were better.

“Earlier they would speak very nicely to us, but now they don’t,” said Aisha. “If there was any problem at all, or someone was sick in the family, all the neighbours would come over and help – whether Hindus or Muslims. Now that doesn’t happen.”

“EMPTY OUT”

Sharfuddin Saifi, 38, who runs a cloth shop at a nearby market, was named in a complaint filed with the police by local Hindus over the cow incident last year.

After 16 days in jail, he was released as the police found he had nothing to do with the suspected slaughter, but said he found much had changed.

Hindus now shun his business. The money he spent on lawyers meant he had to stop going to Delhi to buy stock for the shop, which is largely empty. And he withdrew his 13-year-old son from a private school because he could no longer afford it.

“For someone who had never seen the inside of a police station or even dreamt of committing a crime, it’s a big thing,” he said of the trauma of his detention.

He often thinks about leaving the village, he says, but tells himself: “I have not done anything wrong, why should I leave?”

Carpenter Jabbar Ali, 55, moved to a Muslim-dominated area in Masuri, closer to Delhi, buying a house with money he saved from working in Saudi Arabia.

“If Hindus could kill a Hindu police inspector, in front of a police outpost, with armed guards alongside him, then who are we Muslims?” Ali said, recalling the December incident.

He still keeps his house in Nayabans and visits occasionally but said he feels much safer in his new home, where all his immediate neighbours are Muslims.

“I’m fearful here,” he said. “Muslims may have to empty out this place if Modi gets another term, and Yogi continues here.”

Junaid, a round-faced 22-year-old with a goatee, comes from one of the most affluent Muslim families in the village. His father runs a gold shop in a town nearby.

Seated outside his home, he recalled playing sport together with Hindus.

“When we were young all the Hindus and Muslims used to play together, especially cricket – I played it a lot,” he said. “Now we haven’t played in at least a year.”

He said he wanted to move to New Delhi soon to study at a university there. “Things are not good here,” he said.

Some Muslims, however, say they are committed to remaining. Aas Mohammed, 42, the owner of a flourishing tiles and bathroom fixtures business in a nearby town, has decided to stay in the village, though he has a house on Delhi’s outskirts.

Mohammed helped arrange a lawyer for Saifi after his arrest over the cow incident. He is now lobbying to have the microphone brought back and fighting a legal battle to get a new mosque built.

“I will fight on,” he said. “I am not scared, but another term for Modi will make it very difficult for many other people to live here.”

Source: Reuters

Posted in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Delhi, divide, Gopal Krishna Agarwa, Gopal Krishna Agarwal, Hindu priest, Hindus, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian village, leaving, Masuri, Muslims, Nayabans, New Delhi, Om Prakash, Ramadan, Saudi Arabia, Uncategorized, Uttar Pradesh (UP, widens, Yogi Adityanath | Leave a Comment »

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