Chinese Muslims press for Saudi visas in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Oct 2 (Reuters) Shouting Koranic verses, hundreds of Chinese Muslims protested in front of the Saudi embassy in Pakistan today, seeking visas so that they can join the annual Haj pilgrimage to Islam's holy city of Mecca.

Wearing skull caps and long tunics, many elderly men blocked the entrance to the embassy on a tree-lined residential street in Islambad, while others sat cross-legged on the road shouting verses from Islam's holy book.

Women were lined up behind them and some had laid their beddings on the pavement and the grassy central road reservation.

''We have been trying to get visas for more than a month but they are not giving us,'' Dawood Mohammad, an 80-year-old man, said.

''We have no political aims. We just want to go for Haj,'' he said. The pilgrimage is due to be performed in January.

The protesters said that Saudi embassy had refused to grant visas on the advice of the Chinese government.

A Chinese embassy spokesman said Saudi and Chinese governments had agreed in May that Chinese Muslims would not be given visas in any third country.

''We have asked them to go back to Beijing and get visa. Half of them have already gone back,'' the spokesman said.

The protesters say they have been getting their visas in Islamabad since the mid-1980s, coming over by road across the Karakoram Highway.

Most of the protesters were ethnic Uighurs who come from the Xinjiang province in western China.

Many Muslim Uighurs seek greater autonomy and some want independence from China. Beijing has waged a relentless campaign against what it calls the violent separatist activities of the Uighurs.

Reuters LL GC2007