Having a beard and owning a compass seen as ‘extremist tendencies’ in China

Owning a tent and eating breakfast too early are signs that you might be an extremist in China and could see you locked up indefinitely.

Acting sad in public might seem like a normal response when your parents die, but in China it could see you locked up in an “education centre” indefinitely.

It’s one of a total of 48 “suspicious signs” — including owning a compass, telling someone to stop smoking and eating breakfast too early — that could let Chinese officials know you’re an “extremist”.

A list of seemingly innocuous tendencies has been pulled together for a chapterin the Australian National University’s 2018 China Story Yearbook which casts a spotlight on the Asian nation’s disturbing crackdown on Muslims in its far west region of Xinjiang.

The United Nations says that between one and two million members of China’s Uyghur ethnic minority — the majority of whom practise Islam — have disappeared.

Dr Gerry Groot, Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Adelaide, told news.com.au many of these people have been sent to so-called “vocational-education facilities” and prisons following random police checks.

“A lot of these people will be stuck in there for years and be doing hard labour under the guise of education,” he said.

Muslims and other religious minorities in China can be sent to an ‘education centre’ for seemingly

He said the “slow motion humanitarian diaster” happening in Xinjiang is a result of the Chinese Communist Party not knowing how to deal with the country’s religious minorities over many decades.

In his chapter for the Yearbook, he explains that state “encouragement” of China’s ethnic Han majority to Xinjiang and the rewarding of intermarriage over decades is dramatically reshaping the ethnic make-up of the region.

Xinjiang (in red) is rich in resources and strategically important for China. Picture: Wikipedia

Uyghurs now make up just 46 per cent of the population in Xinjiang, where they were once a majority and a number of terrorist attacks committed by Uyghurs — including a mass rail station stabbing in 2014, killing 31 — and retaliation attacks on Chinese Muslims have inflamed tensions.

Ever since the September 11 attacks in 2001, Dr Groot says the Chinese government has sought to link any unrest among the Chinese Muslims with foreign radical Islamist movements.

He says this helps to explain why the controversial policy of internment of Chinese Muslims at such an alarming rate has domestic support.

“There’s zero interest against changing it within China, it probably has overwhelming support in so far as the average person knows what it’s about,” he said.

“There’s almost zero support for Uyghurs among the general population because the Communist Party and, in particular, (Chinese leader) Xi Jinping, have framed this existential crises.”

Not only that, he said that the instances of international condemnation have been few and far between — with prominent Islamic nations such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia even supporting China’s actions.

Ethnic tension has flared in the Xinjiang province between

Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia have failed to criticise the Chinese government. Picture: AFP

He says the crackdown on attempts to “de-fang” religious minorities — including Christians — by the Communist party is an attempt to stop its regions forming their own identities.

At the heart of this fear is what happened to the former Soviet Union in the late 1980s when the nationalism of Eastern European countries pried the bloc apart.

“The fear of internal nationalism, splits or anything that happened within the Soviet Union has been a very powerful driver for policy in China and we’ve seen the extension to the policy to the demolition of mosques,” he said.

“The number of mosques being destroyed has increased.”

Religion has been seen as an external and destabilising force in China for many decades now.

Dr Groot says that a number of dissidents involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests — in which thousands of protesters were killed — converted to Christianity and that, over the years, many of those pushing for political change have also found religion through their struggles.

“So, the party sees religion itself as part of the problem,” Dr Groot said.

“If you believe in god then god is above the party and that’s a problem and they have to be crushed. You can’t have a different moral vision, you can only have a supportive moral vision.”

Thousands of Chinese civilians were killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. Picture: AP Photo/Jeff Widener

FORTY-EIGHT SUSPICIOUS SIGNS OF ‘EXTREMISM’

The following reasons can be used as a trigger by Chinese Government officials to justify someone being sent to an education camp.

Owning a tent

Telling others not to swear

Speaking with someone who has travelled abroad

Owning welding equipment

Telling others not to sin

Owning extra food

Eating breakfast before the sun comes up

Merely knowing someone who has travelled abroad

Owning a compass

Arguing with an official

Publicly stating that China is inferior to some other country

Owning multiple knives

Sending a petition that complains about local officials

Having too many children

Abstaining from alcohol

Not allowing officials to sleep in your bed, eat your food, and live in your house

Having a VPN

Abstaining from cigarettes

Not having your government ID on your person

Having WhatsApp

Wailing, publicly grieving, or otherwise acting sad when your parents die

Not letting officials take your DNA

Watching a video filmed abroad

Wearing a scarf in the presence of the Chinese flag

Wearing a hijab (if you are under 45)

Going to a mosque

Praying

Fasting

Listening to a religious lecture

Not letting officials scan your irises

Not letting officials download everything you have on your phone

Not making voice recordings to give to officials

Speaking your native language in school

Speaking your native language in government work groups

Speaking with someone abroad (via Skype, WeChat, etc.)

Wearing a shirt with Arabic lettered writing on it

Having a full beard

Wearing any clothes with religious iconography

Not attending mandatory propaganda classes

Not attending mandatory flag-raising ceremonies

Not attending public struggle sessions (the public humiliation of political rivals)

Refusing to denounce your family members or yourself in these public struggle sessions

Trying to kill yourself when detained by the police

Trying to kill yourself when in the education camps

Performing a traditional funeral

Inviting multiple families to your house without registering with the police department

Being related to anyone who has done any of the above

You can read or order the China Story Yearbook online.