‘Extremists making inroads into Xinjiang’

Islamic extremist forces with global ambitions are trying to penetrate into China’s restive Xinjiang region and influence local Muslim Uygur population by spreading radical messages through Internet, legislators from the province have said.

Local population in Hotan prefecture in Xinjiang have been influenced by newly-emerged foreign religious extremists, said Eziz Musar, the prefecture’s commissioner who is currently here to attend the Chinese legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC).

The extremists’ influence is also felt in some other parts of the Xinjiang autonomous region, the home of over 11 million Uygur Muslims. External extremist forces use the Internet to spread their ideas, fan hatred and propagate terror, Eziz told state-run China Daily. Their messages are downloaded by a very small group of local people who use different communication tools to pass them on to others, he said.

“Authorities have to put this extremist content on their watch list without delay and enforce the law by accelerating the crackdown on people who spread such illegal information,” Eziz said.

Hotan is on Xinjiang’s front line in the fight against religious extremism, which has spawned an increasing number of terrorist attacks in the region and other parts of China in recent years. China blames East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an extremist outfit fighting for the independence of Xinjiang, for a host of violent attack in the province and other parts of China.