Hundreds of children rescued from Illegal Muslim schools in China

Officials in China's Xinjiang region have rescued 190 children and detained 85 people in a series of widespread raids on underground Islamic schools.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The sweep was reported in China's state-run Legal Daily, and reported that the raids in the Xinjiang regional capital of Urumqi was reportedly the largest to date, and followed a series of deadly attacks in western China which has been blamed on Islamic separatists.

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The recent raids were part of a continuing campaign against "three illegals," the Legal Daily reported, using the official term for unsanctioned religious publicity materials, activities or teachings.

In August, authorities also rescued 82 children from similar illegal Islamic schools in the region, which is home to millions of Muslims.

Islam is one of five faiths that China allows, but schools are not allowed to offer religious instructions.

"Only in the politics class will there be a few chapters introducing the main religions in the world, which includes Islam. Apart from that, there's no class on religion [in Xinjiang]," said Xiaofeng Chen, a Beijing-based spokesman for Save the Children, which runs education programs in Xinjiang.

Muslims warned that China's ban on religious education was helping to expand extreme Islamic teaching.

"The discrimination and lack of normal religious education has helped greatly in spreading radical thought among young people, including many of my friends," an anonymous Muslim man reported.

In Xinjiang, restrictions on practicing Islam are more severe than in other areas of the country in response to a growing separatist movement by regional Muslims.

Some rights groups outside China warn that these measures are fueling the recent upswing in attacks, linked to Muslims, which have left at least 323 people dead since April of 2013, but one Muslim man in Urumqi said that the restriction are likely to be effective in containing the spread of Islam.

"People, especially women and young people who are not allowed to mosques due to tradition and by the government have the need to learn religious knowledge; otherwise, the religious population is getting older and disappearing gradually," he said.

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