Xinjiang burqa ban not repression of religious freedom: official

A senior official of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region defended a local ban on burqas Thursday, saying burqas are not folk costumes nor Muslim clothes but are "garments of extremism."

Shewket Imin, an official with the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Committee of the Communist Party of China, made the remarks at a press conference on Thursday, at which a white paper on Xinjiang's decades of development was also released.

Local legislature in Xinjiang approved a regulation banning wearing of burqas, a garment that covers women's faces.

Shewket said there are problems involving people using burqas to hide their identity. In one instance men wearing women's burqas abducted children.

"By covering people's eyes, burqas represent some kind of backwardness. We Uygur people don't like to see women wear such kind of clothes either," said Shewket, himself a Uygur, adding that many women need to work and keep contact with society.

"We have a clear-cut position on the freedom of religious beliefs: defending legal activities while resolutely curbing extremism and illegal ones," he said.

The official noted that the government has a series of measures to safeguard people's freedom of religious belief in Xinjiang, including sending thousands of Islam followers to Saudi Arabia Arabia and providing clerical personnel with allowances.

According to the white paper, released ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the autonomous region, there are altogether 24,400 mosques with 28,600 clerical personnel in Xinjiang. Endi