Source: OnIslam & News Agencies

Amid fresh arrests, restrictions on fasting and prayers at mosques, Uighur Muslims are suffering under the latest episode of Chinese government crackdown on their ethnic minority in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.

“If any religious figure discusses Ramadan during the course of religious activities, or encourages people to take part, then they will lose their license to practice,” Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uighur Congress, told Eurasia Review on Friday, August 5.

“The more serious cases will result in arrests for incitement to engage in illegal religious activity,” he said.

A day before the start of the holy fasting month for China’s Muslims, at least 11 people were killed in a series of attacks in the north-western region of Xinjiang.

Chinese authorities blamed the attacks to the ethnic minority, after which the Chinese police shot dead two Muslims last Sunday.

The attacks came less than two weeks after 18 people were killed in an attack in the restive Xinjiang region.

Following the unrest, more than 100 uighurs were detained by Chinese authorities.

Most of those detained as suspects were committed Muslims who attended mosque and whose wives wore veils, residents say.

Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, was the scene of deadly violence in July 2009 when the mainly Muslim Uighur minority vented resentment over Chinese restrictions in the region.

In the following days, mobs of angry Han took to the streets looking for revenge in the worst ethnic violence that China had seen in decades.

The unrest left nearly 200 dead and 1,700 injured, according to government figures. But Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim minority, say the toll was much higher and mainly from their community.

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