There is no ban on Uygur dress, police deputy says at congress

Muslim head coverings and long beards are "kind of passé", a deputy police chief from Xinjiang's Kashgar prefecture said this week when explaining why authorities discouraged such practices among Uygurs, who make up 40 per cent of the region's population.

But Kurex Kanjir, a Uygur who is also a member of the Xinjiang delegation to the Communist Party's 18th national congress, said there was "absolutely no ban" on Uygurs wearing traditional Islamic dress.

Some Uygurs and human rights groups have blamed policies enacted by the region's Han-dominated government - which they say suppresses religious freedom - for sparking riots in the autonomous region.

Residents of the southern Xinjiang city of Hotan said a policy of discouraging women from wearing traditional black Islamic robes was one of the main triggers for a deadly attack on a police station in July last year that resulted in the deaths of at least 18 people.

"We have never said people cannot wear traditional ethnic dress," Kurex Kanjir said on the sidelines of the congress on Sunday. "But we are now in a civilised society and we hope to use modern culture to guide a somehow backward culture. It is something not to be forced, but something to be achieved through guidance."

His remarks follow a row triggered last year by a notice issued by a local government in Xinjiang that asked Uygurs, who are mostly Muslim, not to wear Arab dress, grow beards or cover their faces with veils.

The controversial notice was issued by the authorities in Yining's Dunmaili district in December in a bid to "dilute religious consciousness", a euphemism for the simmering ethnic tensions in restive southern Xinjiang. Nearly half of the city's population is Uygur.