Chinese court jails man for growing beard

BEIJING — A court in China sentenced a man from the country's mainly Muslim Xinjiang region to six years in jail for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" that included growing a beard, state-run media reported over the weekend. The man's wife was given a two-year jail sentence for wearing a veil and burqa.

The couple, whose identity and ethnic group were not identified, were convicted on Sunday by a court in the desert city of Kashgar, in China's northwest, the China Youth Daily newspaper reported.

The newspaper said city officials made repeated attempts to encourage the man to cut his beard and for the woman to remove her veil and burqa as part of an anti-extremism campaign taking place across Xinjiang called "Project Beauty." One of the initiative's aims is to stop women from covering their faces or hair.

China's government blames a rising tide of terrorist attacks on Islamic extremism among the region's Uighur people, a Muslim minority who speak a Turkic language. Hundreds of people have died over the past two years in violence blamed by the authorities on Uighur separatists. Uighur exiles contend Chinese oppression of cultural and religious freedom sparks the violence.

The Kashgar People's Court said the man, 38, who appeared to have a Uighur-sounding name, exhibited behavior that amounted to defying state law. The woman, whose age was not given, received a lesser sentence as she "repented her errors."

A number of other people were convicted on the same charge, the Dahebao newspaper reported, but no details were given. The court said the convictions were handed down "to uphold social stability and lasting political stability."

Reports of the convictions were mostly removed from Chinese news websites Monday, revealing the sensitivity of Beijing's crackdown against perceived extremism within China's Muslim minority. Human rights groups complain the "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" charge is increasingly being used by authorities as a catch-all crime to punish a wide range of dissent.

Chinese authorities regularly pressure news websites to remove content on sensitive subjects such as Xinjiang and Tibet, or only publish reports from state news agency Xinhua.

"A heavy sentence for growing a long beard is typical of the political persecution" faced by Uighurs, said Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress. "If a Chinese person grows a long beard, it's personal freedom and fashion; if a Uighur does, he's a religious extremist," said Raxit.

The number of criminal trials concluded in Xinjiang in 2014 jumped 40% compared to 2013, the U.S.-based Dui Hua Foundation, a human rights advocacy group, said earlier this month. The report concluded that the rise took place after China's leader Xi Jinping launched an aggressive anti-terrorism drive.

Street posters seen in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi this month depicted Uighurs sweeping away "extremist" objects such as burqas and "illegal religious publications," in order to "cleanly see in the New Year," celebrated in China in mid-February. And in one Kashgar township, a 45-day training program began this month for 54 people who either wore veils or burqas, or grew beards, Dahebao reported.

"Their (Uighurs) educational level is very low, they are deeply affected by extremist religious thinking, but we can win them over," said local Communist Party official Wang Huailiang. He advocated learning a skill, such as cooking.

"Fighting terrorism should not undermine the authority of the Criminal Law, and should not be abused," Gan Yuanchun, a lawyer based in central Hunan province who urged caution, wrote on Sunday on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like microblog.