Punishing Namāz Prayer in Prison, Part II: “Illegal Religious Activity”

A photo of the Id Kah Mosque, the largest in China, in Kashgar, Xinjiang, taken in 2017. The photographer noted that worshippers had their ID cards recorded. Image credit: David Stanley / CC By 2.0 

Part I of this article discussed existing laws and regulations limiting religious expression in China, and it explored the case of Ismayil Sidiq, a Uyghur farmer serving a 10-year prison sentence for “promoting extremism” whose sentence was doubled after he “used a disguised and simplified method to perform namāz in the prison dormitory.” Namāz, commonly known as salah, refers to the pillar of the Islamic faith that obliges believers to pray five times a day. 

Dui Hua’s research into court judgments, however, found a similar case where a Uyghur prisoner was sentenced in December 2019 to 18 months for Article 315 for conducting “illegal religious activity” on four occasions in Xinjiang’s Shihezi Prison. Prior to this, the Uyghur prisoner was serving his 20 years prison sentence for terrorism and promoting extremism. Despite being accused of conducting “illegal religious activity” on one more occasion, he was given an 18-month prison sentence for Article 315—half the length of Ismayil’s sentence. The judgment did not state whether namāz was involved. 

Ismayil’s case is by no means an isolated incident, although what happened to him might have portended the worst possible outcome for performing namāz in prison. Dui Hua found cases where other Uyghur prisoners, while already serving lengthy prison sentences, were criminally prosecuted for Article 315 because of namāz. In the first case, a Uyghur serving his 10-year sentence for participating in a terrorist organization in Xinjiang’s Bayingolin Prison was found to have performed namāz on four occasions during the week of March 14, 2017. On each occasion, he awoke other cellmates, including those serving their sentences for endangering state security, to join his morning prayer. On May 21, he was put under 15 days of solitary confinement, during which he insisted on performing namāz five times a day and called on other cellmates to join his prayer. 

A picture of Bayingolin Prison. Image credit: Shahit.biz 

It would be a mistake to assume that prosecution against namāz only targets Uyghurs convicted of endangering state security, terrorism, or religious extremism offenses. In the second case, a Uyghur serving his seven-year sentence for “gathering a crowd to disturb social order,” a public order offense, in Korla Prison was indicted for Article 315 on June 13, 2017. The indictment stated that he refused to repent and that he insisted on performing namāz every day. Originally due for release on July 17, 2021, this Uyghur prisoner is likely to remain incarcerated until at least 2024. 

In these two cases, the trial outcome is unclear. However, given what happened to Ismayil, they are highly likely to have been convicted and sentenced to additional prison terms under Article 315. 

Besides Uyghurs, Muslim prisoners from other ethnic minority groups outside of Xinjiang also receive punishment for performing namāz. However, Dui Hua found that none of them were sentenced or criminally prosecuted like the abovementioned Uyghurs. These cases involved one Hui and two ethnic Dongxiang Muslims who were convicted of theft or drug-related crimes in Linxia, Gansu. The Hui and Dongxiang Muslims were only given warnings by prison authorities in July 2018. The duo allegedly showed remorse by stopping their prayers completely after they were warned. 

Nevertheless, not all prisoners are as obedient. Ma Mene (马么呢), an ethnic Dongxiang Muslim, displayed a “bad attitude” and confronted prison guards after he was found praying in prison. Ma was placed under yanguan jixun (严管集训) for 15 days, a form of strict control for collective discipline training. During this period, he was unable to accrue clemency points to obtain early release. 

A Muslim prisoner in the United States prays on his rug inside his cell at prison. Image credit: Andy Aitchison, PrisonImage / Creative Commons 

China is not alone in denying Muslims their right to pray or worship meaningfully in prison. From reading the Quran to growing beards and restricting daily group prayers, Muslim prisoners in other countries have their religious rights deprived to varying degrees. In the United States, Muslims are overrepresented in state prisons, making up 9 percent of the prison population despite being 1 percent of the general population according to a 2019 report by Muslim Advocates. The report found that prisons in multiple states fail to accommodate Muslim dietary requirements, force male prisoners to shave their beards, and restrict group prayer.  

As recently as April 2022, Muslim prisoners in the United States faced obstacles in accessing halal food, adequate dietary accommodations during Ramadan, and religious materials such as prayer mats and Qurans even as equivalent requirements are met for other faiths. Some progress has been made after civil society organizations filed lawsuits challenging religious restrictions in prison. For instance, federal prisons in the United States changed the national guideline in 2019 to accommodate Muslim congregational prayer services, which was previously restricted to three people, unless there is a security concern.  

The use of “security concerns” to justify restrictions on religious expressions is an oft-used tool of governments. China, too, often cites security concerns to justify its religious crackdowns in- and outside of its carceral system. In a country which adheres so closely to the notion of “stability above all else,” it is unlikely that religious restrictions on namāz in prison will abate. Similarly, the right to free assembly through group prayer, a practice valued by Muslims and only recently permissible in US prisons, is likely to continue amongst China’s repression of religious expression and assembly. 

Punishing Namāz Prayer in Prison, Part I: “Sabotaging Prison Supervision”

A clock hanging in a Turkish mosque showing Muslim prayer times. Image credit: LooiNL 

Muslims around the world are obliged to perform five daily prayers at dawn, midday, afternoon, sunset, and night. The ritual, commonly known as salah, is often called namazi (CN: 乃玛孜) in China, a Persian transliteration of namāz. Within China’s carceral system, all forms of religious worship, including namāz, are forbidden. Prisoners who covertly perform namāz are at risk of receiving harsh punishment, with the most serious penalty being a sentence extension. 

This risk is well demonstrated in the case of Ismayil Sidiq. In May 2021, the BBC reported that the now-57-year-old Uyghur farmer was serving a 10-year prison sentence for “promoting extremism” in Kuitun Prison in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps when he had his sentence doubled after he “used a disguised and simplified method to perform namāz in the prison dormitory.” On May 29, 2018, the Kuitun Reclamation Area People’s Court convicted him of “sabotaging prison supervision” and “provoking ethnic hatred,” and handed down an additional prison term of 13 years. Ismayil has 16 more years to serve before completing his sentence on May 28, 2038. He will be 74 years old. 

The four-page judgment gave a detailed account of what happened in Kuitun Prison. First searchable on China Judgements Online, the judgment is among the tens of thousands of sensitive cases taken offline in mid-2021. The judgment has since been archived and translated into English by the Xinjiang Victims Database. 

A translation of the judgment against Ismayil. Image credit: Xinjiang Victims Database Twitter account 

According to the judgment, Ismayil performed namāz on three occasions in the prison dormitory in early 2018. The first two took place on January 25 and February 17 after he realized that the time displayed on the television was the time for his final daily namāz. On March 3, on the pretext of needing to urinate, he secretly performed wudu, the washing ritual that Muslims perform before praying. After being discovered and stopped by his Uyghur cellmates, he became outraged and shouted at them asking, “Are you Uyghurs? Do Uyghurs enjoy reporting other Uyghurs like this?” 

The court found clear and sufficient evidence of Ismayil sabotaging prison supervision because he “repeatedly engaged in covert religious activities in prison.” This crime alone afforded him a prison sentence of three years - the maximum penalty stipulated in Article 315 of the Criminal Law. Furthermore, he was found guilty of “provoking ethnic hatred” because the remarks he made to other Uyghur cellmates “sowed discord among the ethnic groups and created ethnic antagonism.” This crime also landed him the maximum prison sentence of 10 years as stipulated by Article 249. 

An excerpt taken from academic journal Crime and Corrections reveals that namāz is among the religious activities explicitly banned in prisons and re-education-through-labor facilities through Xinjiang. Image credit: Crime and Corrections, (2001) Issue 4 

While prisoners are allowed to retain their religious faith, prison authorities across China proscribe all forms of religious activities but allow prisoners to read religious books or silently chant scriptures. Article 2 of a provisional regulation issued by the Xinjiang Department of Justice explicitly prohibits all forms of religious activity such as participating in Ramadan, namāz, other forms of worship, or sermons in prisons and reeducation-through-labor facilities. However, many Muslim detainees and prisoners defied this prison rule and “shared a propensity to organize gangs when they perform namāz in groups,” according to an article published in Crime and Corrections in 2001. Congregational prayer, referred to as Salat al-Jama'ah, is highly valued among Muslims and is thought to be more spiritually enriching than solo prayer.  

In Xinjiang, namāz is a matter of concern for managing prisoners serving their sentences for endangering state security. A 2008 policy document examining the challenges faced by Xinjiang prison authorities states that these prisoners not only distort the history of Xinjiang, spread rumors, and incite ethnic hatred, but they also “use acts such as hunger strikes, suicide, namāz and feigned illness to disobey management and refuse reform.” 

Existing laws and regulations, however, have not clearly explained the criminal liabilities for performing namāz in prison. The crime of “sabotaging prison supervision,” defined in Article 315 of the Criminal Law, makes no mention of namāz or any other forms religious activity. It only stipulates that the following acts fall under the crime’s purview: (1) beating supervising personnel; (2) organizing other people under detention to sabotage supervision order; (3) assembling a crowd to make trouble, thereby disturbing normal supervision order; (4) beating, carrying out corporal punishment on or instigating other people to beat, carry out corporal punishment on other people under detention. 

It is not immediately clear whether performing namāz fulfills the criteria of stipulation 2 as stated above. Assuming it does, Ismayil’s case might suggest that the three instances of namāz he performed on January 25, February 17, and March 3 of 2018 were already sufficient to reach the threshold for the maximum prison sentence of three years.  

Read Part II.