China’s central government has issued new rules for Muslim pilgrims wishing to take part in the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The new rules stipulate that only the government’s Chinese Islamic Association is allowed to organise travel for pilgrims and that no other organisation of individual may do so.
The government says the new rules will facilitate a better Hajj experience for Muslim pilgrims.
"Organizing trips for hajj is welcomed by Muslims in China, since better services are offered during the trips. China's well organized annual hajj trips have also been welcomed by Saudi Arabia, which faces great pressure on transportation and other infrastructure during hajj," Zhu Weiqun, a Chinese government official, told the state news organisation Global Times.
Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which is considered one of the five pillars of Islam, a religious obligation for Muslims to complete once in their lives if healthy and financially able to do so.
The rules, announced on Monday, come amid ongoing accusation of widespread human rights abuses against the Muslim minority Uighur population in China’s western Xinjiang province. There are believed to be around 12 million Uighurs living in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government is accused of forcing more than one million Uighurs into re-education and labour camps.
But Beijing has repeatedly rejected the assertions, describing the facilities as job training centres aimed at steering people away from terrorism.
Chinese authorities have also been accused of carrying out forced sterilisations and abortions of Uighur and other ethnic minority women, according to a study published in June. Beijing has similarly strongly denied these allegations.
Human rights organisations have long sounded the alarm over the Chinese government's actions in Xinjiang, with some calling the policies "genocide".
