Veils and Beards Banned on Buses in Karamay, China

According to an August 7th, 2014 Al Jazeera report, Officials in Karamay, China, which is located in the Xinjiang region of the country have implemented a new policy which bans the wearing of veils on buses. The law also restricts those with long beards from riding the buses. The government argues that these are security measures, although many have rightly argued that this is clearly discrimination and stereotyping by the government. Some, such as “Alim Seytoff, the president of the Washington-based Uyghur American Association” said that “Officials in Karamay city are endorsing an openly racist and discriminatory policy aimed at ordinary Uighur people…”

Such policies clearly counter international human rights law. The freedom of religion, as well as the freedom of speech are clearly protected in the corpus. Furthermore, it seems to suggest that the state thinks that those who wear veils or niqabs, or those with beards are likely to cause trouble, which is grossly inaccurate. This falls under what Columbia Professor Mahmood Mamdani argued in his book “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror,” where he explains that to some in the West and elsewhere, the Good Muslim is one who fits a certain image, politically, religiously, etc…, compared to the Bad Muslim who is not judged on whether they are a good individual, but rather based on their expression of religious, or political views.

Let us hope that the government will reverse this policy, as it clearly violates the rights of the Muslim community in the region, which is the group that the law seems to be targeting.