Mosques in riot-hit Urumqi were ordered to stay closed for Friday prayers in the wake of ethnic violence that has killed at least 156 people, an official said yesterday.
The prayers after midday are a focal point of the week for the minority Muslim Uighurs in Urumqi, and Chinese authorities took the rare step of restricting them in apparent attempts to deter any large, emotional gatherings at the mosques.
“For the sake of public safety all of the mosques have told people that there will be no Friday prayers and that people should stay at home today and pray,” said the official at the Yang Hang mosque in downtown Urumqi.
She said she was a government worker but refused to give her name.
Outside the mosque with its gold dome and twin minarets, people stopped to read a white paper notice canceling Friday prayers. One middle-aged Uighur woman who would not give her name said she thought the mosque should stay open.
“It’s not necessary to close it because everyone who enters the mosque is a Muslim. It will be safe,” she said.
“We just don’t have any power,” she added, then was pulled away by her husband.
Nearby, an elderly Han Chinese woman interrupted a foreign reporter before he could talk to two elderly Uighur women in long traditional dresses and headscarves.
“Of course, the mosque should be closed. Just look at all the damage that has been done,” the Han Chinese woman said in a loud voice.
“This is a patriotic move for the sake of the well-being of all the ethnic groups,” she said before stomping away without giving her name. The other two quietly walked away as well.
The violence in Urumqi began on Sunday when Uighurs clashed with police while protesting deaths of Uighur factory workers in a brawl in another part of the country. The crowd then scattered throughout Urumqi, attacking Han Chinese, burning cars and smashing windows.
Riot police tried to restore order, and officials said 156 people were killed and more than 1,100 were injured.
Thousands of security forces have been patrolling the streets, but that wasn’t enough to keep vengeful Han Chinese mobs from hunting down Uighurs on Tuesday.
Top Chinese Communist Party leaders have said that ending the ethnic feuding was now “the most urgent task.”
An official at the China Islamic Association in Beijing, who gave only his surname Jin, said mosques in China had been ordered to suspend Friday prayers before, during the country’s outbreak of SARS in 2003.
“Our religion is quite flexible, so it’s possible to cancel for the benefit of everyone,” Jin said.
The head of the association, Chen Guangyuan (陳廣元), in an excerpt from a speech posted on the association’s Web site yesterday, said the violence was caused by “evil people” intend on causing ethnic splits.
“Don’t be fooled by evil people,” Chen said.
Uighurs generally practice a moderate form of Sunni Islam that was prevalent in Central Asia under Soviet rule. More militant and austere forms of Islam have made inroads in recent decades. But the government controls the appointments of clerics, helping to deny a pulpit to imams who disagree with official policies.
Restrictions on their religion already rankle among Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking people who have complained about the influx of Han Chinese, who make up more than 90 percent of China’s population, in the remote western region.
At the Liudaowan mosque in Urumqi, the imam, Memeti Imam Damala, said the mosque received a notice on Thursday night saying not to hold prayers.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS