BEIJING -- Calling for punishment of 'China's Rushdie,' more than 2,000 Chinese Moslems marched through Beijing Friday to vent anger over a book they labeled blasphemous and a distortion of Islamic sexual practices.
The march followed a decision by authorities in western China to ban the book, 'Xing Fengsu,' or 'Sexual Customs,' after a local chapter of the official Islamic Association lodged protests.
'Severely punish China's Rushdie,' more than 2,000 Chinese Moslems and members of five Islamic minorities chanted as they marched to a mosque visited just days before by Iranian President Ali Khamenei.
The slogan was a reference to British author Salman Rushdie's novel 'Satanic Verses,' which is considered blasphemous by many Moslems and prompted a Feb. 14 death decree against the author by Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
'Sexual Customs,' a look at the sexual practices of world religions and races, has angered Chinese Moslems with its claims the holy Koran teaches young males who go to heaven will be rewarded with virgins and that Islamic males practice bestiality with camels.
In one passage, the book says the prophet Mohammed promised those who were worthy they would go to heaven upon their deaths.
'There, there are young virgins who do not know what obscenity is, with dark eyes like pearls, fulfilling the promise of the Koran,' it says.
Protesters also labeled as blasphemous the book's comparison of the domes on Islamic mosques to women's breasts and walled shrines to female sexual organs.
China has more than 10 million Moslems, most of them members of minority groups including the Kazakhs, the Hui and the Uygur, who inhabit the nation's westernmost provinces.
'The contents of this book offend not only our religion but our race as well,' said a Kazakh freshman from the Central Minorities Institute who took part in the 20-mile march. 'It is full of lies and slander and we demand redress for this insult.'
Students at the institute announced a boycott of classes to protest the publication of the book and the government's failure to prevent it from being printed.
Although the nation has been rocked by student unrest and pro-democracy demonstrations since mid-April, Friday's march marked the first street protest related to religion.
Protesters applied for and received permission for the march from the Beijing Public Security Bureau, making it the first legal street protest in nearly a month of nationwide demonstrations.
The protesters said the book, written by two Chinese using the pen names Ke Le and Sang Ya, was the latest in a string of works written by Han Chinese authors that have distorted and maligned their faith.
Beijing Vice-Mayor He Luli called for a ban on the book, which was published in March, and the immediate confiscation of existing copies. Authorities in northwestern Gansu Province banned it May 8.
'This book has damaged the unity of China's nationalities,' she was quoted as saying during the Beijing evening news broadcast.
Though Rushdie's 'Satanic Verses' has not been translated into Chinese, Chinese newspapers have widely reported the furor over its contents.
'I haven't seen it so I can't pass judgment. But I think if it came to China there would be a reaction,' said one of the Moslem marchers.
Khamenei, who is in China for a six-day official visit, told reporters Thursday the death sentence decree against Rushdie stands and compared it to a 'bullet' that will 'one day hit its target.'
A spokesman for the Shanghai Cultural Publishing House, which published 'Sexual Customs,' said it was printed by a company in northern Shanxi Province that has since been closed.
The spokesman, who declined to give his name during a telephone interview, said that although his company was involved in its publication, it has yet to receive copies of the book and is unaware of the contents.
'We had no control over what they printed,' he said.
