Kashgar, China
Los Angeles Times
Men rest at a tea shop in Kashgar’s old town. “Religious repression has gotten much worse since Xi Jinping took over” as China’s president, said Dilxat Raxit, a Sweden-based spokesman for the World Uygher Congress.
Forget privacy.
Chinese authorities here want to know what you eat and when you eat it. How you style your hair, how you dress, and what songs are on your iPad or smartphone.
Stung by a string of terrorist attacks by Uighurs, members of a Muslim minority who live in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, the Communist Party has stepped up an intrusive campaign against expressions of religious identity in the group.
Throughout Kashgar, a Silk Road city of 500,000 considered the heartland of the Uighurs, restrictions are enforced by closed-circuit cameras and an army of police and neighborhood patrols.
Barbara Demick reports on Chinese restrictions on expressions of Islamic faith in the wake of terrorist attacks for the Los Angeles Times.