BEIJING (AP) — Thousands of police officers are being sent to patrol rural villages in Xinjiang in northwestern China amid concern about religious extremism in the heavily Muslim region, state media reported Monday.
The official Xinhua News Agency said 8,000 police will be recruited so every village in Xinjiang has at least one officer on patrol. It said they will help manage migrants and crack down on illegal religious activities.
Xinhua cited Xiong Xuanguo, a regional Communist Party official, as saying local authorities are being ordered to do more to maintain social stability and strengthen their crackdown on extremist religious activities.
Regional spokeswoman Hou Hanmin confirmed to The Associated Press that the 8,000 officers were being recruited under a "one village, one officer" campaign. She said, however, that their main job would be to improve public services.
Xinjiang is home to the traditionally Muslim Uighur ethnic group. Long-simmering resentment among Uighurs over rule by China's Han majority and an influx of Chinese migrants has sporadically erupted into violence. Separatist sentiment is rife, with some Uighurs advocating armed rebellion. A smaller fringe has been radicalized by militant calls for Muslim holy war and has been found in training camps across the border in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
China has responded by boosting police presence and at times restricting the practice of Islam — moves that have further alienated many Uighurs and ratcheted up tensions.
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