Egyptian army officer’s diary of military life in a revolution

Despite the crucial role played by the military in Egypt’s upheaval, little is ever heard from those at the heart of the armed forces: the ordinary, mid-ranking personnel whose loyalty to the military, or lack of it, could yet determine the outcome of the revolution.

Now, one insider has penned a unique account of life in the Egyptian army. A reserve officer for several years, he was in active service throughout the anti-Mubarak uprising and worked through this year’s unrest before completing his duty in late 2011. The officer’s name and identity has been concealed; the text below has been edited for clarity and to preserve the writer’s anonymity.

“Officer training was intense. Our days started at 5am, and conditions were terrible. It was an attempt to ‘break us’ and transform us from civilians to military men. The hours were filled with pointless assemblies and formations where we’d stand for hours in the sun, the recital of army songs, singing the national anthem daily and following orders from the sergeants and warrant officers who would treat us terribly. But even those who gave us lessons would complain about the army and tell us how surprised and shocked they were at how different it had been from their expectations, and how frustrated they were at being unable to leave.

Regulation food was awful and served most of the time with dirty plates and spoons; it was partly bad management but I also believe they arranged things like that deliberately as it was possible to buy your own food instead from the well-stocked cafeteria and this was a way for the army to make money.

Punishment for misdemeanours included being forced to stay at the training academy on your days off, being made to lie down with your hands behind your back and then crawl on the ground, and being told to stand under the sun for an hour in full uniform and equipment, or getting thrown into military jail. It was all designed to humiliate you, but often we preferred being sent to jail; it was better than the normal daily schedule because at least it meant we were out of the sun.

Sometimes we’d rebel until the prison was full, at which point they’d have to try and be nicer to us. At the beginning we weren’t even allowed phones, but over time everyone found ways around the rules and we managed to get anything we wanted into the barracks: mobiles, laptops, beer, hashish, chess, cards and kettles.

The main challenge was staying sane and keeping your chin up, remembering that they were trying to crack your spirit. The senior officers are all still living in 1973 [the year of Egypt's last major military conflict, the Yom Kippur war with Israel] and spent all their time reminding us of the imminent threat posed by Israel and how the Israelis are scared of the huge numbers of educated young officers drafted annually into the Egyptian army. It was different in the old days; back then they had a cause to fight for – now it’s all just bullshit and corruption, just another job for most of the personnel.

Most of the mid-ranking officers are completely uninterested in all the patriotic rhetoric. For them it’s just stable employment with decent benefits; the majority are pretty naive and not very politically conscious, and the revolution took them by surprise. When 25 January [the outbreak of the revolution] began these officers were instinctively against the protests but once the regime began to crack they were appalled at the stories that emerged of corruption surrounding Mubarak and his cronies. Most became relatively pro-revolution but I think there was some bitterness over the fact that things had clearly been so rotten for so long and yet their generation had done so little about it. Now it was the younger kids who were forcing political change; the older guys felt confused and weren’t sure what to believe.

After Mubarak fell and the rule of Scaf (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) began, the top brass moved quickly to secure the loyalty of all mid-level and junior officers. Whenever a big Friday street demonstration or rally in Tahrir Square took place we would all receive a bonus of between 250 and 500 Egyptian pounds (£26-52), whether or not we had anything to do with policing the protests.

It’s ridiculous; at the height of the unrest reserve officer salaries doubled and everyone was getting huge bonuses all the time (an average of 2,400 pounds – £254 – for me in January and February). Most full-time officers didn’t really care what was happening politically on the streets, they were just happy with the extra money. Occasionally though you’d hear guilty jokes about how we were the only people who were benefiting from the revolution and the Egyptian people had been screwed over.

It was clear that the army desperately wanted to avoid any form of protest in the country once Mubarak was gone. The aim was to win over more of the Islamist population who might have traditionally been more hostile to the armed forces, as well as scaring the shit out of anyone else who might be thinking of holding a demonstration. Each confrontation with protesters was a test to measure the reaction of the general public and see what level of brutality and violence they could get away with.

That was especially obvious during the Maspero events [a protest by Coptic Christians and their supporters on 9 October which was attacked by the armed forces, leaving 27 dead]. The media, army and interior ministry have always worked hand in hand for their personal goals, and in this instance they worked to escalate the fitna [an Arabic word denoting chaos and division] between Muslims and Christians, and there was a great deal of ignorance and confusion within the ranks. The Christian minority are seen by many – inside the army and outside – as less important, so they were an easy target. You have to bear in mind that for the most part, officers only watch mainstream Egyptian television and so they never see the YouTube videos showing the darker side of Scaf. They’re in denial.

But as the months went on, despite this ignorance and the generous bonus system, dissent against [Egypt's commander-in-chief and current head of Scaf, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein] Tantawi has grown. Most of the mid-level officers now think of him as Mubarak’s right-hand man, and they hate the fact that Scaf’s violence has tarnished the army’s image in the eyes of the public. Many still disapprove of the current protests because they feel it’s not the right time, and also because they’re resentful that others can go and demonstrate on the streets when they themselves do not have such freedom. But that attitude is beginning to change, especially as independent TV channels have been airing video clips of the recent violence and the brutality of the security forces is being openly discussed by people like [prominent media personalities] Yosri Fouda and Ibrahim Eissa. More and more mid-level officers are turning against Scaf, and against Tantawi.”

Egyptian Revolution stalling as military holds on to power

CAIRO // Egypt’s military-controlled government is being squeezed from both sides of the political spectrum just two weeks before voters go to the polls for the first time since February’s uprising.

The outcry against the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf) came after the November 1 release of a draft of constitutional principle. This would include preventing the parliament from overseeing the military’s budget and guaranteeing it semi-autonomy.

The document confirmed fears the military was reluctant to cede power to a civilian government after taking control of the country after the resignation of the president, Hosni Mubarak, in February.

A bloc of mainly Islamist political parties, called the Democratic Alliance, was leading the attack.

The groups, including the Freedom and Justice Party, which is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, gave the Scaf until tomorrow to back down from the proposal.

If not, there were plans for a mass protest in Tahrir Square against the military on Friday.

Elections for the lower house of parliament begin on November 28.

“The real test for Egypt, more so than anything else, will be the showdown between the military and the Islamist forces,” said Ramy Yaccoub, a political strategist involved in Cairo. “When a group of Islamist forces imposes a deadline on the military, they mean business.”

Meanwhile, liberal protests were held on Sunday against the detention of two prominent bloggers, Alaa Abdel-Fattah and Maikel Nabil Sanad, who were detained by order of the military courts. About 12,000 Egyptians have faced military trials this year, a bone of contention between activists and the interim government.

The human rights office of the UN has called on the Scaf to release all prisoners jailed for what some say were expressions of free speech. A former military official said yesterday that the Scaf was facing unprecedented pressure to make concessions.

“This problem came at the right time,” said a retired air force major general, Mohamed Kadry Said, a military analyst at the state-funded Al Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.

“The military has been adopting a strategy to start from the highest position, asking for the most it can get,” he said. “But, facing pressure, they will go down to some middle point” in the coming weeks.

A military court ordered on Sunday that Mr Abdel-Fattah be kept in custody for another 15 days after his initial 15-day detention, which began on October 30.

Military prosecutors allege he played a role in inciting October’s sectarian clashes that left 27 people dead, mostly Coptic Christians.

A statement on Sunday from the military said Mr Abdel-Fattah was accused of stealing a military weapon, destroying military property and attacking security forces.

Mr Abdel-Fattah has denied the allegations but has refused to speak to military prosecutors because of his belief that he should not be tried in a military court.

His case has become symbolic of the military trials because of the perceived similarities to his previous arrest by the Mubarak regime in 2006.

He has published blog posts through his wife, a fellow activist, describing his experiences in jail.

On Monday, he described spending Eid in his cell with his family only able to visit him and other detainees briefly “in the presence of a number of informants – twice the number of parents”.

In a previous post on the couple’s shared blog, www.manalaa.net, he wrote of his shame at asking to be taken to a different prison facility.

“I could not take the difficult circumstances of the appeal detention, the darkness, the filth, the cockroaches that crawl over my body day and night, there is no break and we don’t see the sun, darkness again,” he wrote. “I didn’t know how to man up and take [the conditions], even though thousands are bearing such conditions and worse, even though I haven’t experienced the agonies of a military jail and wasn’t tortured like other colleagues of military trials.”

Mr Sanad was arrested on March 28 and jailed for three years for spreading false information about Egypt’s military on his blog.

An appeal hearing was adjourned on Sunday until November 27 after Mr Sanad, who is also reportedly on a hunger strike and has been placed in a psychiatric institution by the military, refused to attend.

Muslim brotherhood demands Military cede power in Egypt

CAIRO — The Muslim Brotherhood demanded Thursday that Egypt’s military rulers cede control of the government, stepping closer to a long-anticipated confrontation between the ruling generals and the Islamist-dominated Parliament.

In a statement on its Web site and a television interview with one of its senior leaders, the Brotherhood called for the military to allow the replacement of the current prime minister and cabinet with a new coalition government formed by Parliament, which would amount to an immediate handover of power.

The Brotherhood, the formerly outlawed Islamist group that now dominates Parliament, had previously said it was content to wait for the June deadline by which the generals had pledged to turn over power, which they seized with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak last year. And signs were accumulating of a general accord between the military and the Brotherhood over the terms of a new constitution expected to be ratified before the handover. The Brotherhood’s shift comes on the eve of the Feb. 11 anniversary of Mr. Mubarak’s downfall, when other activists around the country have called for a general strike to demand the end of military rule — a call the Brotherhood has previously resisted.

But the group is also changing its position at a time when the military-controlled government appears overwhelmed by domestic and foreign crises, including a deadly soccer riot last week followed by five days of violent protests, a standoff with Washington that has imperiled billions of dollars in United States aid and international loans, and an economy teetering on collapse.

“We must start the formation of a coalition government immediately, to deal in particular with the economic situation and the state of lawlessness in this homeland,” Khairat el Shater, deputy to the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide and one of its most influential figures, said in the online statement, which quoted an interview he gave to Al Jazeera.

Mr. Shater pointed in particular to the government’s repeated use of deadly force against civilian protesters.

“Dealing with the demonstrators violently is a mistake, a sign of weakness and mismanagement by the Ministry of Interior,” he said.

The Brotherhood is effectively agreeing with street protesters and liberals on the need for the military to leave power at once. But in the polarized dynamics of Egypt’s nascent democracy, liberal party leaders said Thursday that they were unwilling to form a coalition with the Islamists even to remove the military.

“The liberals would prefer to be in opposition to monitor and leave it to the Brotherhood to implement their control,” said Emad Gad, a leader of the liberal Social Democratic Party.

At stake in the debate over the timing of the handover is who will hold power during the drafting of a constitution and election of a president. The military has previously sought guidelines giving itself permanent political powers and immunities, and its opponents fear that it could again try to shape the constitutional process for its own benefit.

In the early rounds of elections, Brotherhood leaders briefly threatened to challenge the generals over control of the government. But later, signs of accord emerged with the ruling military on delicate subjects like limiting disclosure of the defense budget.

Now, though, the military-led government appears paralyzed by crises. The generals have seemed unwilling or unable to resolve a dispute with Washington over criminal charges filed against 16 Americans, including the son of a cabinet official, in a politically charged case over foreign financing of nonprofit groups. (Egypt initially said that 19 Americans were being charged, but the United States says only 16 are citizens; of those, at least six are still in Egypt and barred from traveling.)

The dispute prompted President Obama and Congressional leaders to threaten to cancel Egypt’s $1.5 billion in annual American aid. Diplomats say American opposition could also make it harder for Egypt to obtain billions of dollars in badly needed foreign currency from the International Monetary Fund, as well as other international lenders and donors.

Last week, the deadliest soccer riot in Egypt’s history and the bloodiest in the world in at least 15 years left more than 73 fans dead. Many blamed the police for failing to prevent the violence, and tens of thousands of protesters swarmed Interior Ministry buildings in Cairo and Suez.

But 15 more were killed as a result of the response by the police, who used tear gas, birdshot, rubber bullets and live ammunition. Since beginning a crackdown in October, the security forces have killed more than 100 street protesters.

The soccer riot and its aftermath prove “that security in the country is in a state of grave instability,” a Brotherhood spokesman, Mahmoud Ghuzlan, said.

But the advent of a democratically elected Parliament has made it possible for the chamber to form a coalition government with the legitimacy to crack down on the disorder. “If the Parliament formed a government that represents the people, it could take harsh measures that would deter anyone who might dare to repeat such disasters,” Mr. Ghuzlan said.

He said the Brotherhood had changed its position toward the interim government in part because of the report of a parliamentary fact-finding mission. Lawmakers who visited the morgue found that the interior minister had lied to lawmakers when he said his officers never used birdshot or other ammunition against the demonstrators.

“He didn’t say the truth,” Mr. Ghuzlan said, explaining that the Muslim Brotherhood’s parliamentary leaders were now moving toward a no-confidence vote to remove the interior minister. It could be a first test of strength between the elected Parliament and military leaders.

But he said the group did not seek a confrontation, and noted that the current interim Constitution backed by the military allowed it to name a new cabinet even after a parliamentary vote of no confidence.

If the military council refuses to let Parliament name a new cabinet, Brotherhood leaders said, they may seek a no-confidence vote on the whole government, or take to the streets.

Egypt: secular forces continue to clash with Brotherhood

Egypt’s prosecutor general on Monday ordered the arrest of five prominent political activists accused of inciting violence against President Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, a step the opposition decried as a reversal for democracy.

The move seemed certain to deepen mistrust in an already polarized political landscape, further complicating Morsi’s efforts to build bridges with his opponents before parliamentary polls the opposition has threatened to boycott.

Those ordered arrested included Ahmed Douma and Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a leading blogger who became a symbol of the uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Also ordered arrested were Karim al-Shaer, Hazem Abdel Azeem and Ahmed al-Sahafi.

The five were banned from travel while a sixth person was summoned for questioning.

Abd El-Fattah, who was arrested under Mubarak and the military council that replaced him, said in a statement he would head to the prosecutor general’s office on Tuesday. He described the warrant as proof of the “corruption of the case and the prosecutor general’s bias in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood”.

The prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the five had been accused of inciting “aggression against people, the destruction of property and disturbing civil peace” in street battles near the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters on Friday.

At least 130 people were hospitalized in the fighting.

The arrest warrants follow a threat on Sunday by Morsi to take steps to protect the nation following the clashes. Mursi said “necessary measures” would be taken against any politicians found to be involved.

Commenting on the news, Pakinam El Sharkawy, an adviser to Morsi, stressed the distinction between “political work and freedom of expression and opinion and violence, thuggery and calling for them”, state media reported.

The two sides traded blame for the latest in a series of violent demonstrations targeting Morsi and the Brotherhood, the Islamist group that propelled him to power in a June election.

“We feel under threat. We feel this [is] a total reversal for democracy and we expect the worst,” said Khaled Dawoud, a spokesman for the National Salvation Front, an alliance of non-Islamist parties that came together last year to oppose Morsi.

The rift between the Brotherhood and its secular-minded opponents has deepened since Morsi was elected president and spasms of street violence have obstructed his efforts to revive an economy battered by unrest.

Morsi’s opponents accuse him and the Brotherhood of seeking to dominate the post-Mubarak era. The Brotherhood has in turn accused the opposition of failing to respect democratic rules.

The arrest warrants followed a formal legal complaint filed to the prosecutor by the Brotherhood on Monday against 169 people, including leaders of political parties, it accused of inciting or carrying out Friday’s violence.

Satisfying the Brotherhood Base

Morsi’s remarks on Sunday were in part seen as a response to anger within the ranks of the Brotherhood, whose offices have been routinely ransacked and torched in recent months.

“The greater issue now for them is how to manage the anger of their base and their members. These members are agitating to fight back,” said Yasser El-Shimy, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. “The leadership has to show its base that there are other routes to combat the attacks,” he said.

April 6, a pro-democracy activist movement, echoed criticism against the prosecutor general. He was appointed late last year by Morsi in disputed circumstances and his removal is one of the opposition’s demands.

“To the prosecutor general – why do arrest warrants only happen when there are clashes at the Brotherhood headquarters?” it wrote on its Facebook page.

Mohamed Abolghar, head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, said: “I am really, very worried about political freedom, media freedom – they are in extreme danger.”

Social media, where good news trump bad news

Having always been accustomed to reading and hearing about corrupt politicians, abductions and killings in the daily newspaper and on daily television news reports, social media has become my source of sunshine.

Once I’m done learning about these horrific events I turn on my computer, connect to Wi-Fi and begin browsing the internet with hopes of getting away from all of the negativity.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit and BuzzFeed have personally been my source of happiness. Scrolling down Facebook and reading about all of my friends’ accomplishments and aspirations lets me believe that there are so many great things going on around me. Tweeting at celebrities and looking up funny videos on YouTube isn’t my own personal guilty pleasure. Everyone does it!

Victoria Chiriboga, an Ecuadorian student at George Washington University, spends some time on social networks such as Facebook only to read about the good news her family and friends have to share.

“I enjoy reading my newsfeed on Facebook, it helps me stay connected with my family and friends who are still in Quito,” she said. “Facebook is definitely a place where most people in our generation, including myself, go to get ‘light’ news about day to day activities.”

The New York Times recently published an article about a new study that shows that social media is being used as a source of good news rather than bad news. The Times mentioned the following: ”Neuroscientists and psychologists have found that good news can spread faster and farther than disasters and sob stories.”

“People say more positive things when they’re talking to a bigger audience, rather than just one person.”

Social media as an outlet for everyone

All of these social media networks are meant to be used for people to express themselves, show admiration for their sports teams, share pictures of amazing trips and talk about great challenges they have conquered. Why would people go on Facebook and talk about unaccomplished goals and failures? It makes no sense. No one wants to log on to Facebook and see on their newsfeed, “Today was a terrible day.” People want to see “I got into college!” or “My favorite sports team just won the championship!” and “I’m going to be a parent!”

As it was clearly stated in the New York Times article, people feel like they have to share these amazing stories with their friends in order to show off the great things that are happening to them. They are encouraged to share more and more of their accomplishments once they start receiving likes, shares and retweets.

I personally believe that all social media networks are a great way of staying in contact with family and friends, but there are some people who disagree.

How do you feel social media has impacted our society? Do you depend on it as a source of good or bad news? Sound off in the comments!

Qari Abdul Basit (ra) and the Communists: a miracle

In 1987, Qari Abdul Basit was visiting America, the same Qari Abdul Basit whose cassettes of the Holy Quran have become famous. Someone asked him once if he had seen a miracle of the Holy Quran, to which Qari Abdul Basit said, “Just one miracle? I can relate thousands which I have seen with my own eyes.” The man asked him to relate some, so Qari Abdul Basit started talking.

Qari Abdul Basit related an event from the time of Jamal Abdul Nasser, who was once the president of Egypt. Communism was at its height, and once while on tour of the Soviet Union, Nasser was pressured heavily to become a communist and thus spread the doctrine in his country. He was promised that the Soviet Union would make Egypt a technological giant if only Nasser would renounce Islam and introduce Communism as the state religion. Abdul Nasser politely refused and thus ended this particular tour. He reached home but was restless that he had not defended Islam as sufficiently as he should have because he was not knowledgeable enough.

Abdul Nasser was invited to the Soviet Union again after a few years, and so this time he requested Qari Abdul Basit to come to Moscow with him. Abdul Basit was surprised because he had never imagined that he would ever be required in the Soviet Union, a land whose government and people refused to acknowledge Allah.

On this occasion Jamal Abdul Nasser courageously introduced Qari Abdul Basit to the Soviet heads of state, telling them that he would recite the Holy Quran, the Book of Islam. Qari Abdul Basit closed his eyes and started reciting Surah Ta Ha, the same part of the Holy Quran that had made one of the worst enemies of Islam, Hadrat Umar ibn Khattab, bow to Islam.

Qari Abdul Basit opened his eyes and looked up after reciting two rukus, and he saw the miracle of the Holy Quran in front of his eyes. Four to five heads of the Communist Party were in tears. Jamal Abdul Nasser smiled and asked, “Why are you crying?” to which one of them replied, “We don’t know. We haven’t understood a word but there is something in this Quran that has melted our hearts and compelled us to cry. We don’t know what has done this.”

Qari Abdul Basit said that this was an amazing miracle that he saw in front of him. These were people who did not know the Glorious Quran; did not accept the Glorious Quran, and who could not understand the Glorious Quran, yet Allah was affecting their hearts through the recital of the Glorious Quran. Hadhrat Imam Ghulam Habib (ra) used to say that no one makes routes for rivers; rivers make their own routes and ways. The Holy Quran is such a Book that winds its own route of mercy through to the hearts of people, which is why the unbelievers of Makkah and Madinah accepted Islam upon hearing it. This is why the unbelievers used to confer among themselves and advise each other to shout and make noise whenever the Holy Quran would be read, so that they would not be affected.

However, the Holy Quran was sent to win over hearts, and Allah accepts those who live their lives by it. We should try and read the Holy Quran often and act according to its instructions so that Allah makes us successful both in this world and the Hereafter.

Our righteous predecessors received blessings because of their closeness to the Holy Quran. This was the Message that shook Arabia, and wherever the Sahabah turned with this Book, the world was compelled to bow. Those camel and sheepherders who refused to bow to Caesar of Rome became people who changed the destiny of the world. How? They used to act upon the Holy Quran, unlike people who don’t act upon it now. They were true lovers of this Glorious Quran, reading softly or loudly, sometimes crying.

This Book has been sent to enlighten hearts, and if even today people read it with love, Allah will shower blessings upon them. This is a Book of guidance, sent to bring mankind out of darkness and into light. The lovers of the Glorious Quran receive the honor of both this world and the next, like the heights that Allah had awarded the Sahabah.

China restricted Ramadan for Uighur Muslims

At a teachers college in far northwestern China, students were irritated to find that their professors were escorting them to lunch last month — an odd occurrence since they were more than capable of finding the cafeteria themselves.

There was an ulterior motive, students told travelers who recently visited the city of Kashgar: The college wanted to make sure that the students, most of them Muslims, were eating rather than fasting in daylight hours during the holy month of Ramadan.

Then, something even stranger happened, the students said. When Ramadan ended late last month, launching the three-day Eid al-Fitr feast, all the restaurants and the cafeteria on campus were shut down. Students were barred from leaving the campus. On the next two days of the holiday, the cafeteria was open, but the students were locked in, unable to leave to celebrate with their families.

“It was totally backwards,” complained a 20-year-old Muslim student who was forced to skip the holiday.

In the aftermath of violent protests this year by Uighurs, the ethnic Turkic and Muslim minority living in northwestern China, authorities have deepened their campaign against religious practices — particularly during Ramadan.

For years, China has restricted observance of Ramadan for Communist Party members and government cadres. On one website for an agricultural bureau, for instance, employees were reminded “not to practice any religion, not to attend religious events and not to fast.”

This year, the local Communist Party also ordered restaurants to remain open during the day, even though chefs and most of their potential customers were fasting. Failure to keep their doors open made restaurants subject to fines of up to $780, the equivalent of several months’ salary.

So restaurateurs made token gestures, assigning one waiter to sit in the doorway and a chef to make a single dish that would be either eaten cold at night or discarded.

In Kashgar, across from the Id Kah Mosque, the largest in China, travelers described a bored teenage waiter in a Muslim skullcap sitting in the doorway of a darkened restaurant looking out onto the dusty sidewalk as if waiting for the customers he knew wouldn’t come.

Along the entire strip, restaurants were similarly unlit and empty, with none of the usual smells of roasting lamb wafting from the kitchens.

“They just offer what they can to avoid trouble,” said a doctor in his late 20s, who asked not to be quoted by name for fear of retaliation. He described the compromise at one of his favorite restaurants, where the chef made only rice pilaf. “The chefs can’t even taste the food to make sure it is delicious.”

The policy extended deeper into Xinjiang province than just Kashgar. In Aksu, 250 miles to the northeast, the municipal website warned that restaurant owners “who close without reason during the ‘Ramadan period’ will be severely dealt with according to the relevant regulations.”

Residents of Xinjiang province say that Chinese policies regarding Ramadan have become steadily more draconian over the years.

“It has been bad since 1993 and it is getting worse,” said Tursun Ghupur, 33, who comes from Kashgar but has been living in Beijing. “Usually for ordinary people it is OK. You can pray and you can observe Ramadan. But if you go to school and have a job with the government, you can’t be religious.”

Political scientists say the government’s strategy is likely to backfire.

“Particularly with the government crackdown on religion in Xinjiang, this has made more people see religion as a form of resistance rather than personal piety,” said Dru Gladney, a professor of anthropology at Pomona College specializing in Central Asia. “From the authorities’ standpoint, it’s really counterproductive.”

In recent months, Xinjiang has witnessed the deadliest ethnic violence since huge riots in the regional capital, Urumqi, in 2009. On the last weekend in July, the eve of Ramadan, Uighur protesters staged a series of ambushes directed against Chinese authorities, leaving 22 people dead.

At the very least, the restrictions on Ramadan undermine personal relations between Uighurs and Han Chinese.

The Kashgar doctor related an incident involving his nephew, a student at a junior high school. During the holiday, the boy was given a piece of candy by his teacher, who is Han Chinese.

“I’m doing well in school. The teacher likes me. She gave me candy,” the boy told his father late that day.

The father scoffed at the explanation. “She is only trying to tell if you’re fasting for Ramadan.”