Xinjiang’s vanishing mosques highlight pressure on China’s Muslims as Ramadan ends with a whimper
- Few signs of Eid celebrations after crackdown that has seen a reported million Uygurs and other minorities interned in camps
- Muslims in far western Chinese region say they are now ‘too scared’ to practise their faith in public
The
corner where Heyitkah mosque in China’s far western region of Xinjiang
once hummed with life is now a car park where all traces of the tall,
domed building have been erased.
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 Uygurs and other ethnic
minorities face in the heavily policed region.
Behind
the car park in the city of Hotan, the slogan “Educate the people for
the party” is emblazoned in red on the wall of a primary school where
students must scan their faces upon entering the razor-wired gates.
The mosque “was beautiful”, recalled a vendor at a nearby bazaar. “There were a lot of people there.”
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.
Satellite
images from 2014 (top) and March this year show the disappearance of
the dome of the Karamay West Mosque in Xinjiang. Photo: AFP/
Distribution Airbus Defence and Space/ CNES 2019/ Produced by Earthrise
“The
situation here is very strict, it takes a toll on my heart,” said one
Uygur, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “I don’t go any
more,” he added, referring to mosques. “I’m scared.”
In
the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, no longer does the sunrise call
for prayer echo throughout the city – a ritual the manager of the city’s
central mosque once proudly shared with tourists.
On
Wednesday, locals celebrating Eid al-Fitr quietly filed into the
entrance of state-approved Idkah Mosque – one of the largest in China –
as police and officials fenced off the wide square surrounding the
building and plain clothes men monitored every person’s actions.
It
was another low-key Ramadan for Muslims in Xinjiang, where restaurants
were busy serving food to customers throughout the day, a time when
practising Muslims fast.
In
Hotan on Friday – a holy day for believers – the only mosque in the
city was empty after sundown, an important prayer session when Muslim
families typically break their daily Ramadan fast.
Earlier in the day, at least 100 people attended a midday session but the vast majority were elderly men.
The
ruling Communist Party “sees religion as this existential threat”, said
James Leibold, an expert on ethnic relations and policy in China at La
Trobe University.
Over the long term, the Chinese government wanted to achieve “the secularisation of Chinese society”, he said.
The
Xinjiang government said it “protects religious freedoms” and citizens
could celebrate Ramadan “within the scope permitted by law”, without
elaborating.
The
authorities have thrown a hi-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.
An estimated one million Uygurs and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups are held in a vast network of internment camps.
After
initially denying their existence, Chinese authorities last year
acknowledged that they run “vocational education centres” aimed at
steering people clear of religious extremism by teaching them Mandarin
and China’s laws.
In those centres, it was a different Ramadan.
The
Xinjiang government said people in the centres were not allowed to hold
religious activities because Chinese law forbade it within education
facilities, but they were free to do so “when they return home on
weekends”.
Uygur men dance after Eid al-Fitr prayers in Kashgar. Photo: AFP
In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up controls on public displays of religion and Islamic traditions in Xinjiang.
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.
Places of worship too have become targets of Beijing’s draconian security measures.
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.
AFP reporters visited about half a dozen sites, and found that some mosques had been repurposed into public spaces.
Police
officers blocked journalists from entering Artux, just north of
Kashgar, where the town’s grand mosque and dozens of other community
mosques were destroyed.
The
area is some 22km (14 miles) 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.
In
Kashgar, two cameras perched on the columns of a former mosque point at
its entrance. There is no minaret or dome – instead, a shop selling
dresses lies to its right alongside houses.
A demolished mosque in Hotan has been converted into a garden, paved with concrete walkways and sparsely planted trees.
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.
Uygurs
considered these mosques and shrines “their ancestral heritage”, said
Omer Kanat, director of the Uygur Human Rights Project.
“The
Chinese government just wants to erase everything … that is different
from Han, everything which belongs to Uygur culture or Islamic culture
in the region,” he said.
Juma
Maimaiti, the official imam of Idkah Mosque, said in an interview
arranged by the propaganda department that the demolition of mosques
“has never happened here”.
“But our government has proceeded to protect some key mosques,” he said, adding that the city of Kashgar has over 150 mosques.
A propaganda slogan and surveillance camera at a mosque in Yangisar, south of Kashgar. Photo: AFP
Though
Beijing’s 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.
Islamic
greetings and openly fasting in public were no longer permitted, said
Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who focuses on
Uygur culture.
While
there were Uygurs who continued to practise their faith, they are
“internalising it at this moment – they’re not expressing it openly”, he
said.
At
state-backed mosques, religious activity is controlled as Beijing
pursues a five-year plan to “Sinicise” Islam as the “only way for a
healthy development of Islam” in the country, said Yang Faming,
president of the state-backed Islamic Association of China, in January.
Propaganda signs with slogans such as “love the party, love the country” hang at many mosques.
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.
“Unity and stability is a blessing,” read a red banner draped across the wall. “Division and turmoil is a disaster.”
Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3013255/xinjiangs-vanishing-mosques-highlight-pressure-chinas-muslims
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