A university in central China city of Xian has imposed a new ban on Muslim students’ hijab, ordering them to remove the religious attire inside the campus.
“The headscarf ban has spread to all Muslim students of various ethnic groups, including the Uyghur, Kazak and Hui people,” a student who spoke on condition of anonymously said on Tuesday.
“The authorities claimed that the ban was ordered by the ministry of education,” the student added.
News about a hijab ban in Shaanxi Normal University in Xian, a city with a large Muslim population, first appeared in April when reportedly nine female Muslims were told to remove their veils.
Reports later said that the university issued a notice banning Islamic headscarves earlier this month.
Another male student was also reportedly accused of “illegal preaching” after he was caught reading the Qur’an in a cafeteria at the same university last month.
Xian has traditionally seen few restrictions on its multi-ethnic population, which includes at least 50,000 minority Hui Muslims, many of whom live in the narrow streets around the city’s Great Mosque, the oldest in China.
Since April 2014, authorities of Xinjiang started offering cash rewards to informants who report on their neighbors who have a beard.
Earlier this month, a top communist party leader in Kashgar warned against donning the Islamic headscarf.
In addition, in December China banned the wearing of Islamic veiled robes in public in Urumqi, the capital of the province of Xinjiang.
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source : Websites
Wednesday
13 May 2015
1:35:04 PM
689767
A university in central China city of Xian has imposed a new ban on Muslim students’ hijab, ordering them to remove the religious attire inside the campus.