Blog Updates

This week's Virtually Islamic 2.0 blog includes updates on the following digital Islam stories:

Uighur monitoring

Dawn of the Code War

Fatwa against 'Battlegrounds'

Mawlid Celebration

Russian Twitter trolls stoking anti-Islamic sentiment in Australia, experts warn 

Matthew Hedges' Case

 

 

 

 

 

'China tech companies pledge to tackle content that promotes terrorism'

Guardian, China tech companies pledge to tackle content that promotes terrorism, 12 Apr 2016 "China says it faces a serious threat from groups such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which operates in China’s restive far western region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur people, where hundreds have died in violence in recent years."

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."

'China’s Uighurs blame violence on oppression, not ‘jihad’'

AFP/saudigazette.com, China’s Uighurs blame violence on oppression, not ‘jihad’ includes reference to net being blocked

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."

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."

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."

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."