Mosques to suspend Friday prayers in China unrest

China’s Xinjiang braces for Muslim day of prayer, reports Reuters

Ethnic tensions in China’s far-west Xinjiang shift from the streets to mosques of the regional capital on Friday, with many Uighur Muslims saying the authorities would not let them observe their main day of prayer.

Security forces have imposed control over Urumqi, but the prayers after midday will be a test of the government’s ability to contain Uighur anger after Han Chinese, China’s predominant ethnic group, attacked Uighur neighborhoods on Tuesday.

Those attacks were in revenge for the deaths of 156 people in Uighur rioting on Sunday, the region’s worst ethnic violence in decades.

Several mosques throughout an overwhelmingly Uighur bazaar district of Urumqi displayed notices that usual prayers were suspended, and men at other mosques said they thought there would be no prayers on Friday, the main day of worship for Muslims.