06 May 2016•Update: 11 May 2016
BEIJING
A video of a young girl reciting the Quran in a northwest China school has been slammed by local authorities, who claim that such activities are harmful to young people.
Outside of government-approved religious institutions, all schools in the northwest province of Gansu are banned from holding religious activities, offering religious classes or forcing students to follow any religion.
On Friday, the Global Times reported Gansu's education bureau as saying in a statement that a video uploaded to the Internet of the careful recital by a young girl wearing a black headscarf at a kindergarten in Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture had been strongly condemned by netizens.
It strongly denounced such activities, stating they "harm young people's well-being".
The statement -- released late Wednesday -- also underlined that all religious activities are banned in schools and ordered education departments at all levels to firmly put a stop to such activities.
According to China Ethnic News, around 1.8 million of residents in Linxia are religious, with Muslims making up around 63 percent.
The Global Times -- a Chinese government mouthpiece -- reported an official from Gansu's education bureau as contacting the Sina Weibo user who posted the video, but said he was unable to confirm at which kindergarten the video was filmed.
Sina Weibo provides a Twitter-like service that allows users to post a feed of up to 140 Chinese characters, to which they can attach multimedia.
The same video -- titled Chinese Young Girl Recites Quran -- is reported to have been uploaded to YouTube in 2014.
