Beijing's Crackdown On Islam Is Spreading Across China

Chinese officials have cracked down on Arabic-style domes and minarets of the kind seen on this mosque in Lanzhou, a city in Gansu Province. Photo: The New York Times

Indian Express/NYTimes: A crackdown on Islam is spreading across China

In China s northwest, the government is stripping the most overt expressions of the Islamic faith from a picturesque valley where most residents are devout Muslims. Authorities have destroyed domes and minarets on mosques, including one in a small village near Linxia, a city known as Little Mecca.

Similar demolitions have been carried out in Inner Mongolia, Henan and Ningxia, the homeland of China s largest Muslim ethnic minority, the Hui. In the southern province of Yunnan, three mosques were closed. From Beijing to Ningxia, officials have banned the public use of Arabic script.

This campaign represents the newest front in the Chinese Communist Party s sweeping rollback of individual religious freedoms, after decades of relative openness that allowed more moderate forms of Islam to blossom. The harsh crackdown on Muslims that began with the Uighurs in Xinjiang is spreading to more regions and more groups.

Update #1: Mosque demolitions across China raise fears over escalating persecution of Uighur Muslims (The Independent)
Update #2: ‘Boiling us like frogs’: China’s clampdown on Muslims creeps into the heartland, finds new targets (The Washington Post)

WNU Editor: The Chinese may destroy the places where people go to worship, but the worshippers will only go underground.

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