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<\/div>The corner where Heyitkah Mosque in China\u2019s restive Xinjiang"},"modified":"2019-06-05T15:48:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T15:48:22","slug":"wrecked-mosques-police-watch-a-tense-ramadan-in-xinjiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2019\/06\/05\/wrecked-mosques-police-watch-a-tense-ramadan-in-xinjiang\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrecked mosques, police watch: A tense Ramadan in Xinjiang"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/div>\nThe corner where Heyitkah Mosque in China\u2019s restive Xinjiang region once hummed with life is now a concrete parking lot where all traces of the tall, domed building have been erased.<\/p>\n
While Muslims around the world celebrated the end of Ramadan with prayers and festivities this week, the recent destruction of dozens of mosques in Xinjiang highlights the increasing pressure Uighurs and other ethnic minorities face in the heavily policed region.<\/p>\n
Behind the lot in the city of Hotan, the slogan \u201cEducate the people for the party\u201d is emblazoned in red on the wall of a primary school where students must scan their faces upon entering the razor-wired gates.<\/p>\n
The mosque \u201cwas beautiful,\u201d recalled a vendor at a nearby bazaar. \u201cThere were a lot of people there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Satellite images reviewed by AFP and visual analysis non-profit Earthrise Alliance show that 36 mosques and religious sites have been torn down or had their domes and corner spires removed since 2017.<\/p>\n
In the mosques that are open, worshippers go through metal detectors while surveillance cameras monitor them inside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe situation here is very strict, it takes a toll on my heart,\u201d said one Uighur, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t go any more,\u201d he added, referring to mosques. \u201cI\u2019m scared.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, no longer does the sunrise prayer call echo throughout the city \u2014 a ritual the manager of the city\u2019s central mosque once proudly shared with tourists.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, locals celebrating Eid al-Fitr quietly filed into the entrance of state-approved Idkah Mosque -\u2013 one of the largest in China \u2014 as police and officials fenced off the wide square surrounding the building and plainclothes men monitored every person\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n
It was another low-key Ramadan for Muslims in Xinjiang, with restaurants busy serving food to customers throughout the day, when practising Muslims fast.<\/p>\n
In Hotan on Friday \u2013- a holy day for believers -\u2013 the only mosque in the city was empty after sundown, an important prayer session when Muslim families typically break their daily fast.<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, at least 100 people attended a midday session but the vast majority were elderly men.<\/p>\n
The ruling Communist Party \u201csees religion as this existential threat,\u201d said James Leibold, an expert on ethnic relations and policy in China at La Trobe University.<\/p>\n
Over the long term, the Chinese government wants to achieve \u201cthe secularisation of Chinese society,\u201d he told AFP.<\/p>\n
The Xinjiang government told AFP that it \u201cprotects religious freedoms\u201d and citizens can celebrate Ramadan \u201cwithin the scope permitted by law\u201d, without elaborating.<\/p>\n
The authorities have thrown a high-tech security net across the region, installing cameras, mobile police stations and checkpoints in seemingly every street in response to a spate of deadly attacks blamed on Islamic extremists and separatists in recent years.<\/p>\n
An estimated one million Uighurs and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups are held in a vast network of internment camps.<\/p>\n
After initially denying their existence, Chinese authorities last year acknowledged that they run \u201cvocational education centres\u201d aimed at steering people clear of religious extremism by teaching them Mandarin and China\u2019s laws.<\/p>\n
In those centres, it was a different Ramadan.<\/p>\n
The Xinjiang government told AFP that people in the centres are not allowed to hold religious activities because Chinese law forbids it within education facilities, but they are free to do so \u201cwhen they return home on weekends\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mosques gone <\/strong><\/p>\n In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up controls on public displays of religion and Islamic traditions in Xinjiang.<\/p>\n AFP reporters did not see any veiled women and few men sporting long beards during a week-long visit to the region. Former internment camp inmates have said they were incarcerated for these outward signs of their religion.<\/p>\n Places of worship too have become targets of Beijing\u2019s draconian security measures.<\/p>\n In the satellite images analysed by AFP and Earthrise Alliance, 30 religious sites were completely demolished while six had their domes and corner spires removed.<\/p>\n AFP reporters visited about half a dozen sites, and found that some mosques had been repurposed into public spaces.<\/p>\n Police officers blocked journalists from entering Artux, just north of Kashgar, where the town\u2019s grand mosque and dozens of other community mosques were destroyed.<\/p>\n The area is some 22 kilometres (14 miles) away from an enormous complex believed to be a re-education centre. Visible from a nearby village, the facility has razor-wired walls, watchtowers and imposing block buildings.<\/p>\n In Kashgar, two cameras perched on the columns of a former mosque point at its entrance. There is no minaret or dome \u2014 instead, a shop selling dresses lies to its right alongside dwellings.<\/p>\n A demolished mosque in Hotan has been converted into a garden, paved with concrete walkways and sparsely planted trees.<\/p>\n On the outskirts of town, situated between a cemetery and sand dunes, two white flags and a pile of burned refuse and debris was all that was left of an old shrine named Imam Asim.<\/p>\n Uighurs consider these mosques and shrines \u201ctheir ancestral heritage,\u201d said Omer Kanat, director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Chinese government just wants to erase everything\u2026 that is different from Han Chinese, everything which belongs to Uighur culture or Islamic culture in the region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Juma Maimaiti, the official imam of Idkah Mosque, told AFP in an interview arranged by the propaganda department that the demolition of mosques \u201chas never happened here.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut our government has proceeded to protect some key mosques,\u201d he added and said that the city of Kashgar has over 150 mosques.<\/p>\n \u2018Love the party\u2019 <\/strong><\/p>\n Though Beijing\u2019s restrictions on religious piety, such as fasting, are not new, observers say conditions have deteriorated to the point where celebrations for the holy month in Xinjiang are reduced or largely invisible.<\/p>\n Islamic greetings and openly fasting in public are no longer permitted, said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who focuses on Uighur culture.<\/p>\n While there are Uighurs who continue to practise their faith, they are \u201cinternalising it at this moment \u2014 they\u2019re not expressing it openly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n At state-backed mosques, religious activity is controlled as Beijing pursues a five-year plan to \u201cSinicise\u201d Islam as the \u201conly way for a healthy development of Islam\u201d in the country, said Yang Faming, president of the state-backed Islamic Association of China, in January.<\/p>\n Propaganda signs with slogans such as \u201clove the Party, love the country\u201d hang at many mosques.<\/p>\n In Yengisar county, south of Kashgar, one mosque hung a photo of Chinese President Xi Jinping inside its premises, where most posters were dedicated to warning against religious extremism and promoting ethnic harmony.<\/p>\n \u201cUnity and stability is a blessing,\u201d read a red banner draped across the wall. \u201cDivision and turmoil is a disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n