After name ban, China arrests Muslim for 'tweeting Quran'

The New Arab, After name ban, China arrests Muslim for 'tweeting Quran'
"A Muslim woman in China's troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang has been arrested for posting passages from the Quran and other religious material on social media."

China + 'Salafism'

Jonathan Kaiman, LA Times, In China, rise of Salafism fosters suspicion and division among Muslims, 1 Feb 2016 "The growth in the Salafi movement here has rattled China's officially atheist communist government, which finds any expression of religious fervor to be unnerving, especially when it carries associations with foreign extremists."

Uighur Muslims in China Arrested For ‘Online Jihad’

Uighur Muslims in China Arrested For ‘Online Jihad’ - International Business Times "Chinese crackdown on Uighur Muslim, continues in the country's restive Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, as security agencies arrested over 139 activists over the past few weeks on charges of promoting jihad online."

China jails Uighurs for online 'extremism'

Guardian, China jails Uighurs for online 'extremism', 20 June 2013 "Courts in China's far western region of Xinjiang have sentenced 11 ethnic Uighurs to up to six years in jail for promoting racial hatred and religious extremism online, in the latest crackdown on what China sees as violent separatists."

China censorship issues

RFE/RL, Yellow Islamic Aphrodisiacs: The Terms China’s Twitter Doesn’t Want You To Search, 21 Mar 2012 “If you’re one of the 250 million users of the Chinese social network Weibo and you search for the terms “candle wax,” “evolution,” the color “yellow,” or “China’s military,” you’re going to be disappointed. "Blocked On Weibo, which looks at the search terms blocked on China’s most-popular social network and gives further insight into the mechanics and logic of Chinese censorship.”

Xinjiang attacks: online announcement

BBC News, Islamic militant group 'behind Xinjiang attacks', 8 Sep 2011 "A militant Islamic group has released a video saying it was behind recent attacks in China's Xinjiang region which left dozens of people dead, a US internet monitoring group says."

Uighurs in Pakistan

Adrienne Mong, msnbc.com, Behind The Wall - Uighurs – precariously caught between two powers, 9 Nov 2010: "The community closely monitors developments in Xinjiang, relying mostly on word of mouth and occasionally through the Internet."

Islam in China

Edward Wong, NYT, Celebrating Id al-Fitr Under Watchful Eyes of China, 13 Sep 2010 "In recent months, the authorities in Xinjiang have let up on some of the harsh security measures they took after the rioting — Internet services have been restored, for example — but officials here still believe they have plenty of reasons to be anxious. "

WOCMES 3

Still in Barcelona. I missed the first part of Peripheries Become Centers: New Media Borderlands in the Middle East (chair: Dale Eickelman). I did catch Tsuyoshi Saito discussing “Homelands and Home Pages: Contemporary Amazigh Identity in Southern Morocco”; this is an important but under-represented area of research, so I hope to read more in due course. Then Heather Browne discussed aspects of Facebook in Cairo: there were some important updates on recent events (some of which I have blogged here). Yves Gonzalez-Quijano was the discussant, and provided an informed summary: he has edited a new book on Arabic cyberspace (in French) which I'll be reviewing here soon.

This afternoon, I chaired a session New Media in the Middle East Revisited: Networked Audiences and Digital Communities organized by Vit Sisler. We'd put this together over the past few months. It was a very hot lecture theatre! It was good to hear Jon Anderson on “Networked Audiences". Ho Wai-Yip talked about “Speaking to the Arab Street beyond the Great Fire Wall: China’s Arabic International Channel as a New Silk Road Station”: it included some discussion on al-Qaradawi's visit to China, and its representation on China TV, and some interesting material on the new international media approach of China. Vit gave a paper on “Digital Heroes: Video Games and Identity Construction in Iran”, with some important examples of Iranian computer games industry developments: I think his paper will be published somewhere in due course. I discussed in my paper some new elements of my research, focusing on mobile platforms and apps - my article on apps will be out in a couple of weeks time, I understand, on Cyber Orient. I'm thinking of putting a podcast of my presentation out on this site, probably next week (as I forgot the lead to my recorder - so much for digital immediacy!). It's been useful to find out the levels of interest in cyber-activities in this conference. The place has been very busy.

Chinese internet protest

theepochtimes.com, Muslims Protest Selling of Fake Goat Meat in Northwest China, 4 Jul 2010

"The Muslim populace demanded that the guilty party be severely punished, forcing Government authorities to hold a press conference and depose two bureau chiefs. Local Muslims tried to spread words of caution by Internet, but their information was censored.

"On June 26, Islam Online in China (islamcn.net) reported that several hundred Muslims in Gansu traced the fake goat meat to its production site on June 8 and discovered that it was actually thinly sliced pork labeled as kosher goat meat. At least 200 tons have been produced, of which 180 tons have been sold in markets or eaten by consumers."

Xinjiang gets (limited) texts back

CIO, China Restores Text Messaging in Cut-Off Muslim Region, 18 Jan 2010 "China has restored mobile text message services in a Western province where they were suspended for months following unrest. Limited Internet access is also returning to the region."

Research: "Chinese Digital Islam"

Ho Wai-Yip, 'Islamic-Confucian Axis as Transborder Connectivity: Chinese Digital Islam, Middle East & Reimagining the Ummah' Conference paper, taken from 'Transcending Borders: Asian, Middle East, and the Global Community', October 16-17, 2009, Annapolis, Maryland, USA

Here's the first part of the abstract:

"While the predominant focus of the rise of cyber Islamic environments has been on the Middle East and the West, this paper considers the emerging trend of the Chinese-speaking Islamic websites in the midst of growing autonomy of civil social movements as well as the state surveillance, it is argued that the transborder Sino-Islamic digital movements are repositioned in both the foreign policy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its domestic politics among 56 local nationalities of China."

I haven't read this paper yet, but clearly it's an under-represented area, with relevance to this blog.

China, Uighurs and al-Qaeda

bloomberg.com, Al-Qaeda Declares Holy War on China Over Oppression of Uighurs, 8 Oct 09 "A leading al-Qaeda theologian and possible successor to Osama bin Laden called for a holy war against China, which he accused of “Satanic” oppression of Muslims in the westernmost province of Xinjiang.

"“The state of atheism is heading to its fall,” Abu Yahya al-Libi said in a video posted on an unspecified Islamic Web site, Reuters reported yesterday. China has carried out massacres of Muslim ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang and pursued policies aimed at “their demise and destruction” while “looting their wealth and undermining their culture and religion,” Reuters citing him saying."

Uighurs

AP, Internet message in name of Uighur leader urges Muslims to attack Chinese interests worldwide, 2 Aug 09 "An Internet message purportedly from the leader of an Islamic group fighting Chinese rule in a western province urged Muslims worldwide to attack Chinese interests in retaliation for what it called the oppression of minority Uighurs."

AQIM

Telegraph, China pleads for understanding as al-Qaeda vows revenge over Uighur deaths, 14 Jul 09 "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb (AQIM) said it would target the 50,000 Chinese workers in Algeria and elsewhere in Northern Africa,

"Two extremist web sites affiliated with al-Qaeda also made threats against the large numbers of Chinese people working in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East."

Uighur Muslims: Commentary and Opinion

Plenty of coverage of this - I have tried to focus on web related issues:

Khalid Amayreh, Islam Online, Uighur Muslims Crushed in East Turkistan: The Muslim World's Absence of Reaction "Some reports spoke of a real pogrom, including acts of lynching as the number of victims continued to rise, prompting the Chinese authorities to try to block twitters and slow down mobile phone and internet services, apparently in an effort to prevent the dissemination of news of the violence to the rest of the world ...

" ... Muslims around the world have an absolute religious, moral, and human duty to identify with their oppressed brothers and sisters in East Turkistan. These suffering people whose plight can be compared with the plight of the Palestinians, are only demanding basic human rights, including the right to religious freedom."

Susan Yasin, Islam Online, Internet, Blogs Solace Oppressed Uighurs, 7 Jul 09

Stephanie Ho, VOA, Chinese Authorities Blame Internet for Fanning Uighur Anger, 8 Jul 09 "Chinese authorities blame foreign activists for inciting violent protests this week in Xinjiang, and say the Internet enabled them to do it. Uighur groups have used the Internet to rapidly get out images from what they say was a provocative government crackdown on a peaceful demonstration ...

" ... In Beijing, the Twitter messaging system, which protesters in Iran recently used to report on police crackdowns there, has been disabled. And while cell phone connections in the Xinjiang capital, Urumqi, still operate, getting a call to the city, or making an international call from there, is proving difficult."

AFP, China extends hand to foreign media, but tightens grip elsewhere, 9 Jul 09 "The openness after the riots may also indicate Beijing is realising it has become increasingly hard to keep information hidden, said David Zweig, a China expert at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

""They know they didn't do very well in Tibet ... rather than journalists not have access and get stories from Uighurs overseas, this way they go in and see for themselves," he said."

Helena Zhu, Epoch Times, Reporters Fight With Web Police for Xinjiang Incident Photos and Videos, 9 Jul 09 "Amidst the violence in Urumqi, Xinjiang, Chinese bloggers penetrated the regime’s Internet blockades and uploaded photos and videos to Web sites including Twitter and YouTube. They also sent text messages overseas, saying “Reveal truth to the world.”"

Willy Lam, Jamestown Foundation, The Net Revolution: Chinese Netizens vs. Green Dam, China Brief Volume: 9 Issue: 14 "Given the sensitive nature of the post-election political drama in Iran, it is hardly suprising that there is little coverage of the protests—particularly Net-empowered ones—in the Chinese press. Official media stories have focused on Beijing’s support of “the choice of the Iranian people” as well as its opposition to interference by Western forces."

Imagetheif, Riots in Xinjiang and the price of omission, 7 Jul 09

Xinhua.net, People's Daily calls for social stability in Xinjiang, 9 Jul 09 "The People's Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China (CPC), will publish an editorial Friday highlighting stability in Xinjiang as "the most important and pressing task currently."

BBC News, Some mosques defy order to shut, 10 Jul 09 incl. video

Evgeny Morozov, NPR, Foreign Policy: Why Twitter Failed The Uighurs, 8 Jul 09 " Given the current oversupply of Twitter experts, it's strange that nobody told the Uighurs that staging a protest in the week of Michael Jackson's funeral is not going to propel them into the top charts of Twitter's most discussed items. What a bummer – Michael Jackson is still topic number one on Twitter, the Uighurs are not even in top 10, and the Internet-savvy whizzes of the State Department are nowhere to be seen."

Shadow of the Hegemon, China, Iran, and The YouTube Effect, 8 Jul 09 "Nobody can be fully sure where this will end up. Many-to-many video distribution is a new thing, and arguably a bigger deal than many-to-many text distribution was. We're moving away from YouTube-as-harmless amusement to YouTube-as-vital service. But where it goes after that? It depends on people react."



Twitter feed: Xinjiang

Uighurs

AP/msnbc, Freed Uighurs relish Bermuda's sun and sand, 14 Jun 09 "They once were terrorism suspects, but even after U.S. authorities determined the men weren't a threat to the United States, they were kept at the Guantanamo prison for years because no nation would take them — until a few days ago, when Bermuda agreed to let them in as refugees."

China

China

CBS Internet Terror Monitor, China on the Radar of Al Qaeda, 26 Feb 09 "Several pro-al-Qaeda websites posted the Islamic Turkistan magazine in an attempt to raise the profile of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, which has been struggling against the Chinese government to establish an independent Islamic State in the region of Xinjiang. The magazine carried articles entitled “the crimes of the Chinese communist regime” and “why we are fighting China.”"

China

dpa/iol.co.za, Video calls for attacks during Olympics, 26 Jul 08 "A video calling for attacks in China during the Olympics games was placed in the Internet on Saturday by a purported Uighur separatist group."

China

TheStar, Alleged terror plot shakes up Chinese, 12 Mar 08