China announces stricter rules for Muslims visiting Saudi Arabia for Hajj pilgrimage

China has anunced stricter regulations for Muslims visiting Saudi Arabia for annual Haj pilgrim, allowing only Chinese Islamic Association to organise Islamic pilgrim. new regulation, with a total of 42 articles, stipulates that Haj should be organised in accordance with laws and Chinese Muslims should oppose religious extremism.

country has been witnessing a grual decline in number of Muslims embarking upon annual Haj pilgrim every year. Around 14,500 Muslims went for Haj in 2016 and this year, around 11,500 Chinese Muslims are expected to he to Saudi Arabia for Islamic pilgrim. China has around 20 million Muslim population which constitutes of Uyghurs from East Turkestan and Hui Muslims, who are of Chinese ethnic origin.

Saudi Arabia reopened Mecca for Umrah pilgrim from October 4 after seven months of COVID-19 lockdown that prompted its suspension. Saudi's interior ministry anunced that kingdom has planned restart umrah pilgrim in three phases, with only 6,000 people, from inside country, initially allowed to take part every day.

China’s state-run Global Times reported that or organisation or individuals are allowed to organise trips and Chinese Muslims should meet basic requirements as described in new regulations. report comes amid increased international scrutiny of China’s alleged human rights violations of ethnic mirities. 

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Atrocities on Muslims

Various investigative reports have until w suggested that China has been using mass surveillance programme to control every aspect of life of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang region. According to latest report by ema magazine, published by a US-based think tank, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has intensified surveillance through data policing. 

Chinese tech giant Meiya Pico is reportedly helping CCP analyse digital footprint of ethnic mirities to identify ‘signs’ of Islamic extremism. As per report titled ‘ Xinjiang Data Police’, digital forensics tools, built by Meiya Pico, is used to feed data about digital histories of individuals into a region-wide system called Integrated Joint Operations Platform (IJOP). China has deployed IJOP to collect personal information on citizens and create a lengthy list of “suspicious” people based on this data. 

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(With PTI inputs)