dogu-turkistan-sempozyumu

Violations in Daily Life in East Turkistan / Dr Ataullah Sahyaran abortion in August 1997; she was taken away from her house by force andbrought to the health care centre. In addition, her husband was fined 3,000 Yuan.Colpanhan ran away from the health care centre, and sought shelter in a cemetery,where she gave birth to her baby on her own. Colpanhan, who returned homewith the help of a friend, was captured once again as the result of being reported;the baby was drowned in hot water at the police station where she had been taken.Colpanhan, unable to bear the pain of this event, also died.This is just one example; for many years thousands of similar or more tragicincidents have been occurring in East Turkistan.II. Violations in religious freedomMinors are not allowed to carry out religious ceremonies, to enter mosques orto join group religious activities; this ban is strictly implemented in China. Furthermore,religious education in any place, including homes or schools, is strictlyforbidden for all, minors or adults, male or female. Even though China hasopened a religious college -without any infrastructure to support it- to appeal toMuslim countries, Marxist-Leninist or Maoist ideology is instructed here; thereis no Islam. The training is not concerned with religious information, but ratherhow to use religion as a political tool. As the entire curriculum of other schools isreliant upon materialist ideology, there is no training or education based on ideasthat respect religion. Even the old slogans of the Maoist era, such as: “Religion isthe opium of the masses”, “Only those who do not have anything else to pray, andthose who do not have anything to eat fast” are still current, and it is still taughtthat religion is a primitive belief of primitive people. Outside school, the administrationstrictly controls the activities of Muslim people. Retired members of theCommunist Party are placed in the mosques as observers, and the mosques havebecome places where the orders of the regime are imposed on the Muslim people.Sometimes the mosques are closed down, and the call for prayer through loudspeakersis prohibited; sometimes the community of one mosque is prohibitedfrom going to another mosque. There are many other such examples. Most of theofficers working in the Muslim communities in China are those who have gainedthe confidence of the Communist regime and therefore they make trouble for theMuslims -if it were otherwise, they would not be in those posts. In other words,397