Massive security measures in force in the region after hundreds have died in recent years in attacks blamed by the authorities on Islamist militants
Muslims living in China’s far western region of Xinjiang are the happiest in the world and people should not believe the lies spread by extremists and their Western supporters, a senior official wrote on Friday in an unusually strongly worded piece.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Xinjiang in the past few years in violence between Uygurs, a mostly Muslim people who speak a Turkic language, and ethnic majority Han Chinese, blamed by Beijing on Islamist extremists.
Rights groups and Uygur exiles say the unrest is more a product of Uygur frustration at Chinese controls on their culture and religion. China denies any repression.
Sweeping counter-terrorism measures in China’s Xinjiang ‘creating huge police state’
Writing in the official Xinjiang Daily, the region’s deputy foreign publicity director, Ailiti Saliyev, said Xinjiang was stable, harmonious, prosperous, open and modern.
Visitors see this for themselves when they visit, subverting the impression created in Western media of the opposite, he added.
“Many people say from the bottom of their heart: ‘The happiest Muslims in the world live in Xinjiang’ , ” he wrote.
