Chinese Communist Party crackdown on Muslim population spreading as Xi Jinping sees dissent
Steven Lee Myers
Xi Jinping is pursuing an ethnic crackdown in China in the belief it will strengthen his rule ( AFP/Getty Images )
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.
It is driven by the party’s fear that adherence to the Muslim faith could turn into religious extremism and open defiance of its rule. Across China, the party is now imposing new restrictions on Islamic customs and practices, in line with a confidential party directive, parts of which have been seen by The New York Times.
more:
Chinese Muslims might not have defied Chinese rule in the past, but after all these anti-Muslim actions they definetely will in the future. Very counter-productive !!!
Rafiq—
Whatever hardship befalls you is because of what your own hands have committed, while He overlooks many (of your faults). Q.42:30