Windows of the soul: Only the eyes and some skin are made visible by the burqa, also called paranja or chadri, worn by these women. (Photo : Herald Malaysia Online)
The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) and the Supreme People's Court jointly announced on Oct. 30 that 20 new offenses were added in the country’s existing Criminal Law, one of which is the wearing of extremist garments.
The law now makes “forcing others to wear clothes or symbols associated with terrorism and extremism while spreading terrorism and extremism” a criminal offense, according to the Global Times.
Anyone found guilty of such action will be placed under surveillance or be imprisoned up to a maximum of three years.
Li Wei, an anti-terrorism expert working at the Beijing-based China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), told the Global Times that applying a legal ban on extremist garments places “a legal shield” on ordinary citizens if ever they face extremist threats.
The amendments, according to state media, “targets extremism” in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, reported UCA News.
Other offenses added include the use of stolen or fake IDs and cheating in examinations. One revision makes sexual intercourse with an underaged prostitute as a crime of rape, reported CCTV News.
Enforcement of all added laws and revisions started on Nov. 1.
Michelle Roya Rad, a professional psychologist and motivational writer, offers a simple description of a religious extremist in her Huffington Post article as “a self-righteous person gone too far.”
Religious extremists, according to Rad, are “the born-again Christian who killed the abortion doctor or other examples of Muslims who kill the innocent in the name of defending Muslims or the Monks who destroy an orphanage and then all the other historical stories in which people have killed the innocent in the name of religion.”
