As Indian “liberals” and Islamists cry hoarse over Israel bombing Palestine in self-defence to the Hamas terror groups barrage of rocket attacks on various cities of Israel targeting Israeli civilians, their silence is deafening over the treatment of Uighur Muslims by China in Xinjiang.

The same leftists-Islamists of India also fume over containment of jihadi terrorism in Kashmir by Indian security forces and neutering of Article 370 of the Constitution of India to end the unfair special status of Jammu and Kashmir which pandered secessionist Islamist tendencies. While these Indian leftist-Islamists wax eloquently against India, Modi, Israel and Netanyahu they are all in praise for Xi Jinping and his recipe to deal with Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang.

The Reuters in its report today has revealed that prominent mosques are vanishing in Xinjiang province of China as it strives to ‘build a beautiful Xinjiang’.

In Xinjiang’s, Qira city the Jiaman mosque has been hidden away behind the high walls and Communist Party propaganda signs, giving no indications to people travelling by of it being a religious site.

Reuters could not even confirm whether the place still functioned as a mosque. In April, during the month of Ramzan, two ethnic Uyghur Muslim women sat beneath a tiny mesh grate, underneath surveillance cameras inside the compound of the largest mosque in the city.

When Reuter reporters arrived there, four men in plain clothes came to them and told them it was illegal to take photos and asked them to leave. And one of the men who refused to identify himself said, ” There is no mosque here… there has never been a mosque at this site” on being asked whether it was a mosque.

The Reuters state that minarets on the four corners of the building, visible in sattelite images of the place in 2019, has now completely vanished. In place of the mosque’s central dome is now a huge metal box.

To counter criticism of human rights groups and researchers who say that thousands of mosques have been targeted to supress the Muslim Uyghur people, the Chinese state media has started a campaign of government-arranged tours to belie facts on ground.

The Cinese officials in Xinjiang and Beijing denied to Reuters that any religious site had been forcibly destroyed or restricted and invited them to visit and report. The Foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying claimed that, some mosques were demolished and others expanded as part of rural revitalisation.

When Reuters asked why are there restrictions on journalists visiting the area, Hua reportedly said, reporters have to try hard to win the trust of the Chinese people to report objectively!

Notably, from 2017, more than a million Uyghur Muslims are under re-education programmes or detention centres, which is nothing but forced political indoctrination of Chinese value system.

The Reuters reports that functioning mosques have surveillance cameras and include Chinese flags and propaganda displays declaring loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

A Han woman who relocated from Central China to Xinjiang reportedly told the Reuters reporter that, if Muslims want to pray they can do so at home. She also said that there are no longer Muslims who want to pray in mosques anymore and added, “Life in Xinjiang is beautiful”.

Reuters stated, it analysed satellite images of 10 mosques in Changi city and visited six of them. It states that a total of 31 minarets, 12 green or gold domes have been removed within a period of two months after April 2018.

It states that in several mosques, Islamic architecture was replaced with Chinese style roofing. The report states that according to researchers at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, an estimate in 2020 made after a survey of 900 Xinjiang locations, about 16,000 mosques has been partially or completely destroyed over the past three years.

Reuter reported that a signboard outside Xinqu Mosque said a housing development would be built on the site. The signboard read, “For ethic unity, build a beautiful Xinjiang”

So, it seems that for Maoist Xi Jinping’s China, a mosqueless Xinjiang is a ‘beautiful Xinjiang’.

News input and image source: Mosques disappear as China strives to ‘build a beautiful Xinjiang’ | Reuters

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