Muslims' Prayer

As routine was returning to normal, the riot still had an effect on religious services.

Some mosques in Urumqi were closed Friday and Muslims were told to perform their weekly congregational prayer at home.

All five major mosques near the Southern Jiefang Road, center of the Sunday violence, were closed Friday morning.

Outside the Baida Mosque, at No. 441 Southern Jiefang Road, an imam explained that the place had been closed "for safety considerations" and advised people to perform prayers at home instead.

"Mosques in some sensitive areas were closed at their imams' suggestion," said an official in charge of religious affairs with the Xinjiang regional government. "Muslims normally perform rituals at home in time of plague or social unrest."

But mosques in other places in Xinjiang had the ritual normally.

Normal Port and Customs Services, Tourism Festival

All the ports operated as usual after the riot, according to the Xinjiang border police.

"The outbound passenger flow was smooth," said Fan Wenhua, a border inspection official at Horgos, a large land port in Xinjiang which neighbors Kazakhstan.

Fan said the inbound passengers dropped slightly compared with June.

The customs services were also normal.

In the Kazak Autonomous Prefecture of Ili in northern Xinjiang, an international tourism festival opened on Friday, attracting more than 10,000 foreign and domestic visitors and local people.

(Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2009)