A court in China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang region has sentenced a man to six years in prison for “provoking trouble” and growing a beard, a practise discouraged by local authorities, a newspaper reported Sunday.
The court in the desert oasis city of Kashgar sentenced the 38-year-old Uygur to six years, while his wife was given a two-year sentence, according to the Xinjiang Economic Daily.
The man “had started growing his beard in 2010” while his wife “wore a veil hiding her face and a burqa”, the paper said.
The couple were found guilty of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a vague accusation regularly used in the Chinese judicial system.
For more than a year the authorities in Xinjiang have been campaigning against men growing beards -- a practice officials associate with extremist ideas.
A campaign dubbed “Project Beauty” also encourages women to leave their heads bare and abandon wearing the veil, a relatively widespread practice among the Uygurs -- the main Muslim ethnic group in Xinjiang.