HUI MUSLIMS PROTEST AGAINST PLANS TO DEMOLISH MOSQUE
They rejected govt’s deal to spare mosque if domes are replaced with Chinese-style pagodas
Hgathered at the mosque yesterday, and the town’s mayor was expected to hold discussions in the afternoon, added the source.
“If we sign, we are selling out our religious faith,” a Weizhou mosque supporter said, urging villagers not to sign on to the mosque rebuilding plan.
“I can’t talk about this issue,” said Ding Xuexiao, the mosque’s director, when reached by telephone.
Mosque imam Ma Liguo said the situation was “currently being coordinated”. Neither of the men would elaborate.
There was a protest at the mosque on Friday, a man at a government religious office in the county, the Islamic Association, said, adding that the government only wanted the structure “renovated to reduce its scale.”
“The work with the public is ongoing. There has not been a western region of Xinjiang and its Uighur Muslims to near-martial law, with armed police checkpoints, re-education centres, and mass DNA collection.
The treatment of Uighurs has spurred an international outcry, with United States officials saying tens of thousands of people have been detained in Xinjiang’s detention centres.
But Beijing’s policy of “Sinification” of religion has increasingly alarmed many Hui, who fear it is widening its strict measures in Xinjiang to additional Muslim areas, such as Ningxia and neighbouring Gansu province.
In the crackdown, the government has banned religious education for young people in mosques, ordered that the call to prayer over loudspeakers be silenced, and sought to stamp out what it sees as Arab elements in mosques.