Police in Chinese Muslim heartland banned from drinking alcohol – even off duty
- Order issued before Lunar New Year in Ningxia Hui autonomous region, where a third of the population is Muslim
- Traffic police chief vows to develop new hobbies and eliminate ‘drinking at the table’
Ningxia Hui autonomous region in northwestern China, which has a large Muslim population, has banned all of its police officers from drinking alcohol under any circumstances, on or off duty, according to a local government notice.
The “Ningxia public security organs alcohol prohibition order”, issued a few days ago, was published on the official Weibo accounts of several police stations across Ningxia.
The notice said that any member of the police caught drinking alcohol, whether they were an officer or an auxiliary police worker, would be “investigated and strictly dealt with according to regulations”.
“This prohibition order not only bans us from drinking alcohol over the Lunar New Year period, but has no definite end date. Now it looks like it will be in place long-term,” an anonymous auxiliary police officerin Ningxia told Shanghai-based news outlet Thepaper.cn on Wednesday.
Another officer, from Ningxia traffic police, confirmed to Thepaper.cn that he had received the notice on February 3.
In a post on Tuesday from its official WeChat account, the Yinchuan traffic police department said it would “strictly implement” the new policy and “deeply recognise its no-tolerance stance”.
Yinchuan’s traffic police chief Kang Jun said in its notice that the department would aim to cultivate “meaningful interests and hobbies” among staff and “eliminate the culture of ‘drinking at the table’”.
Ningxia has a large number of Chinese Muslims, who make up 34 per cent of its population, but the government notice did not mention whether the ban was related to the Islamic practice of not drinking alcohol.
Many people have argued that the ban is excessive and arbitrary.
“Surely this is unreasonable, they are still not allowed to drink when they return home from work?” read one top-rated comment on the news platform NetEase.
“If the whole country pushed an anti-alcohol law like Ningxia, I bet the share prices of the alcohol manufacturers would drop,” another person wrote.
State news agency Xinhua reported in 2017 that local alcohol bans for government workers during official functions had been implemented in provinces and regions including Guizhou, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
Those tightened guidelines had targeted the traditional culture of boozy office banquets in state firms, as part of President Xi Jinping’s high-profile anti-corruption drive. Expensive drinks such as Mao-tai were commonly presented as gifts or served at official gatherings, which tarnished the image of Chinese government workers, claimed state media.
