More than ten students who were interning at the Medical University of Xinjiang were expelled, other suspended for practicing Islam.
In July, Bitter Winter reported about the religious discrimination at the Xinjiang Medical University where its administration has been undertaking Cultural-Revolution-style covert methods of investigation to weed out religious belief. The university has fourteen colleges, two teaching departments, and seven hospitals affiliated under it.
In April, the university issued warnings that the entire teaching staff, as well as the students, would be investigated. Anyone who is found practicing religious faith will be punished, the warnings said.
To follow through with the investigations, the university appointed personnel who had the authority to search a student’s room, classes, and dormitories. No one was allowed to object to such searches.
As per recent reports, more than ten interns were expelled from the First Affiliated Hospital in Urumqi, for having the Quran and other religious content and items in their possession.
Moreover, during Ramadan, the university ordered for the cafeterias to cease their food take-out option to force everyone to eat their food in public. This was done to monitor Muslim students who might observe fasts.
The university authorities even checked each student’s meal cards and records to see they were having regular meals. Whoever was found skipping food was expelled.
Meanwhile, four Uyghur professors were arrested from the Kashgar University for being “two-faced” – not loyal to the Communist Party. The names of these professors have been pulled down the university’s website, and no one knows of their whereabouts so far.
In another such instance, Professor Azat Sultan, who was the headmaster at the Xinjiang Normal University as well as the chairman of Xinjiang Federation of Literary and Art Circles, was arrested for being a “two-faced person,” and is unaccounted for to date.
Reported by Lin Yijiang
