Authorities in China’s Xinjiang province have carried out a full-scale persecution of the Muslim minority in the volatile region, where tens of thousands of mosques have been destroyed in recent years, an Australian research group has found.
Some 16,000 mosques have been demolished or destroyed, according to satellite photos, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said in a study released Friday (Sept. 25).
The report, titled “Tracing the destruction of Uyghur and Islamic spaces in Xinjiang,” found that some 16,000 mosques had been demolished or destroyed through satellite photos.
Most of the mosque demolitions have occurred in the last three years. The report states that an estimated 8,500 mosques have been completely destroyed. The most severe destruction has occurred outside the capital city of Urumqi and the center of Kashgar.
The report found that two-thirds of mosques in the Xinjiang region were damaged, and about 50 percent of protected cultural sites were damaged or destroyed. The ancient holy city of Ordam Mazar, which dates back to the 10th century AD, has been completely destroyed.
Human rights groups say that more than a million Muslims from the Uighur and other ethnic minorities in northwest China’s Xinjiang province have been imprisoned in concentration camps, which Chinese officials say are vocational training centers. Nearby residents were forced to abandon their religious practices.
According to the report, the Chinese government’s coercive transformation of the Uighur language, music, lifestyle, and diet in Xinjiang has not only placed millions of Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, but has also resulted in the mass eradication of key components of Uighur cultural traditions.
Even in those mosques that were not demolished, many of the upper domes and minarets were torn down. It is estimated that the number of intact and lightly damaged mosques throughout Xinjiang currently stands at no more than 15,500.
If that estimate is accurate, it would be the smallest number of mosques where Muslims worship in Xinjiang in the decades since China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin refuted the Australian think tank’s claim at a regular press conference on Friday. He said, “Xinjiang has about 24,000 mosques, or one mosque for every 530 Muslims, on average.”
Wang said the number of mosques in Xinjiang “is 10 times more than the number of mosques in the United States, and the Muslim population has a higher number of mosques per capita than in many Muslim countries.
Wang said the people of Xinjiang enjoy full religious freedom.
In contrast to the massive destruction of Muslim mosques, none of Xinjiang’s Christian churches or Buddhist shrines were destroyed or damaged during this period, according to the report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Nearly one-third of Xinjiang’s most important Islamic shrines have been razed to the ground, the report said.
An AFP investigation last year found that dozens of Muslim cemeteries in Xinjiang had been vandalized, littered with the bricks and bones of graves.
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