Chinese Muslim website shuttered after Xi Jinping petition

Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks to Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba in Beijing, earlier this month. (Reuters)
Updated 15 December 2016
Follow

Chinese Muslim website shuttered after Xi Jinping petition

BEIJING: One of China’s most popular online communities for Muslims has been shuttered after posting a petition asking Chinese President Xi Jinping to stop his “brutal suppression” of activists, the letter’s authors said on Wednesday.
Since 2003, the “Zhongmu Wang” website, or 2muslim.com, functioned as an “online network of Muslims sharing Islam,” according to archived descriptions.
But as of Wednesday the site was inaccessible, showing only a message stating it was “under maintenance.”
Two of its affiliated social media accounts were also unavailable, displaying messages that declared one account “abnormal” and the other “in violation of required guidelines.”
China officially has more than 23 million Muslims, though some independent estimates say there may be as many as 50 million — which would put China among the world’s top 10 Muslim nations.
While China’s constitution enshrines freedom of religious belief, authorities keep strict limits on it, recognizing only five belief systems and seeking to control their messages.
The closure came after the posting of an open letter to Xi calling for a halt to the “brutal suppression” of activists and the immediate release of those still detained by the state, according to students who wrote the petition.
The letter criticized Xi for overseeing a crackdown on dissent since coming to power in 2012, with hundreds of lawyers, activists and academics detained and dozens jailed.
“You are not responsible for all of the crimes of the totalitarian system, but as the totalitarian system’s head and its commander-in-chief of repression, you must take responsibility for the blood and tears which now flow,” it said.
“In the next spring of China’s new Jasmine Revolution, who will drive your tanks to crush us, the new generation of students after 1989?“
Yi Sulaiman Gu, a Muslim student studying in the US at the University of Georgia, told AFP the website shut the day after he posted the letter to a forum that had previously hosted sensitive discussions on issues such as China’s persecution of Muslim dissidents.
“We believed it would be safe for Zhongmu to post it there,” Gu said.
Phone calls to the website’s owner went unanswered.
But the letter gained attention when screenshots of it were reposted to China’s Twitter-like Weibo by opinion leader Xi Wuyi, a professor of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who said it proved the site supported Xinjiang separatists.
Violence in Xinjiang, the homeland of China’s 10-million strong Uighur ethnic minority, has killed hundreds, with Beijing attributing it to extremism and foreign influence.
“The Chinese government is very unfriendly to the Muslims inside China, especially the Muslims in Xinjiang,” Anthony Chang, a co-author of the letter completing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Queensland in Australia, said.


US Sen. Cruz calls ‘Somali fraud scandal’ in Minnesota ‘morally repugnant’

Updated 4 sec ago
Follow

US Sen. Cruz calls ‘Somali fraud scandal’ in Minnesota ‘morally repugnant’

  • State, federal money allegedly used for personal reasons rather than childcare, food services for seniors
  • ‘Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed and a future diminished’

CHICAGO: Republican US Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas denounced the growing “Somali fraud scandal” in Minnesota as “morally repugnant” during a meeting of the Senate’s Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, which met on Feb. 9.

Allegations of fraud include claims that state and federal money have been used for personal reasons, such as the purchase of vehicles, vacations, clothes and personal expenses, rather than to provide childcare or food services for seniors.

There have also been accusations that some Somali-run childcare centers either had no children being served, or far fewer of them than what was claimed in government funding applications.

“There are few crimes more morally repugnant than stealing from vulnerable children,” Cruz said. “Every dollar stolen is a meal not eaten, a doctor’s visit missed and a future diminished. Child welfare fraud plunders our children’s potential and erodes our nation’s future.

“And disturbingly, at the start of this new year, America has learned that this kind of looting wasn’t occurring in some distant or lawless place, but in the heart of America’s Midwest.”

A 2025 report by the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General found that issues involved overpayments to recipients.

The inspector general, according to media reports, sampled 1,155 childcare centers and found that 11 percent of the payments made to those centers in 2023 had errors.

There are also accusations that COVID-19 relief funds awarded to Somali businesses allegedly harmed during the pandemic were misused or based on exaggerated data.

Cruz said the fraud was neither “accidental or unforeseeable,” although several daycare operators say the accusations are false and political.

He is among a growing number of officials nationwide who have cited Minnesota as an example of how Democrats have failed to protect taxpayers from such criminal acts.

US President Donald Trump has showcased the accusations repeatedly during the past year, and the fraud was used as the basis to direct the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter Minnesota and target “illegal aliens” — people who enter the country and establish their residencies illegally.

On Jan. 9, Secretary of the US Treasury Department Scott Bessent announced a special task force to investigate the fraud at Trump’s direction, accusing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and other Democrats of failing to protect taxpayers.

Walz ran for vice president as the running mate of presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024.

Bessent said the allegations involve “complex and rampant fraud” in Minnesota led by several Somali businessmen that have “stolen billions of dollars” from state-funded programs intended to provide housing for disabled seniors and to feed and shelter children.

The task force includes Bessent’s agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the FBI and the Justice Department.

“President Trump has instructed the administration to bring accountability for the hardworking people of Minnesota,” Bessent said in a statement on Jan. 9.

“Under Democratic Governor Tim Walz, welfare fraud has spiraled out of control. Billions of dollars intended for feeding hungry children, housing disabled seniors, and providing services for children in need were diverted to benefit Somali fraud rings.”

Bessent accused “complex fraud rings in Minnesota” led by Somali businessmen and women of stealing the money from state programs for their personal enrichment in the US and abroad.

“Perpetrators stole money to purchase residential and commercial real estate, luxury goods, vehicles, planes, international flights and other luxury expenses — all at the cost of the US taxpayer,” he said.

Minnesota is home to the largest concentration of Somali immigrants and their descendants in the US, with recent estimates suggesting a population of more than 100,000.

The population is the political base for Ilhan Omar, a Somali American first elected to the Minnesota State Legislature in 2017 and then elected to represent Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in 2019.

Trump said on Jan. 21 at the World Economic Forum: “The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the West cannot mass import foreign cultures, which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own.”

He added: “We’re taking people from Somalia, and Somalia is a failed — it's not a nation — got no government, got no police … got no nothing.”

Trump said up to 90 percent of the Minnesota fraud is caused by people who came to the US illegally from Somalia.

The accusations have resulted in an increased presence of ICE personnel in Minnesota focusing on the Somali population.

In response to the scandal, Walz announced that he would not seek reelection to a third term as Minnesota’s governor in the November general election.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has issued an alert urging financial institutions to identify and report fraud associated with federal child nutrition programs in Minnesota.

The federal investigation of the nonprofit “Feeding Our Future” program has resulted in the indictment of 98 defendants, with dozens convicted and sentenced. The investigation revealed that 85 of the 98 charged are of Somali descent.