The capital of China's most Muslim region has banned residents from wearing the burqa in "an effort to curb growing extremism".
Women in Urumqi, a city of 3.1 million people in the far western region of Xinjiang, will no longer be allowed to wear the garment, state media announced this week.
"Burqas are not traditional dress for Uighur women, and wearing them in public places is banned in countries such as Belgium and France," Xinhua, China's official news agency, wrote in a brief article about the ban.
Xinjiang is home to the Uighurs, a largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking group as well as a growing number of Han Chinese migrants who have poured into the region which borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kazakhstan. » | Tom Phillips, Shanghai | Tuesday, January 13, 2015
