Images recorded in China and shared in the last week of May on social networks caught the attention of the Western world. In them, thousands of people belonging to Muslim minority groups carried out an act of resistance against Chinese authorities, who wanted to put into practice a plan to modify mosques that have been taking place in the country.
The mosque that would be targeted this time belongs to the Hui population, who, like other Chinese Muslim ethnic minorities, are being directly targeted by persecution and arrests by the Xi Jinping dictatorship.
Estimated to number around 10 million people, the Hui live mainly in the Ningxia Autonomous Region of northwest China.
The protests led mostly by members of this ethnic group were held on the last Saturday of May (27). The idea was to prevent a plan to demolish the dome of the Najiaying Mosque, which is located in the province of Yunnan, in southwest China.
The demolition of the mosque’s dome is part of a process that the Chinese regime classifies as the sinization of religions in China, which in this case would be the replacement of traditional religious symbols by “true symbols of Chinese architecture”, or as the dictator Xi Jinping classified it , “to adapt the country’s religions to the socialist society”.
The Najiaying Mosque has a history of over 300 years and is considered by the Hui as an important symbol of their culture and a key place of worship for the region’s Muslim community.
The situation drew international attention when news of the protests and Chinese repression began to spread around the world via broadcasters such as CNN and the BBC. Several human rights organizations and Chinese activists living in Western countries have expressed their concern at the way in which the Chinese regime has responded to the Muslim minority demonstration, with violence and arbitrary arrests.
On the day of the protest, it was reported that residents of the region were demanding to enter the mosque to start their midday prayers. An anonymous source told CNN that, “after arriving at the mosque, we realized that they had put the cranes in the compound and it was ready for forced demolition.” The source stated that scaffolding had already been erected around the mosque for the demolition of the dome.
Shortly thereafter, according to witnesses, Chinese police officers who were building a roadblock around the mosque started hitting the crowd with batons, which led to widespread fighting. Another source reported to CNN that dozens of protesters were arrested.
One of the protest participants reported that the mosque was the “last bit of dignity” left for the local community. Another protester claimed that the work on modifying the dome was seen as an act of “coming to our house to try to demolish it”. “We cannot allow this to happen,” he added.
After the conflict, the police in Tonghai County, the neighborhood where the Najiaying mosque is located, issued a statement with a threatening tone, in which it instructed the demonstrators to surrender to the authorities until last Tuesday (6). “Those who voluntarily turn themselves in and confess their violations and crimes may receive lighter or lessened punishment,” the statement read.
According to CNN, during the two days that followed the demonstrations, residents of the region took turns to guard the mosque, fearing that the authorities would return to demolish its dome and its four minarets (towers from which a member of the mosque calls the population for prayers).
A Hui citizen, who declined to reveal his identity for security reasons, said, “It seems our nightmare is just beginning now.” He was afraid of the eventual consequences of resistance against the demolition of the mosque’s dome. “Everyone is scared. We don’t know what will happen next, ”he said.
persecution history
The Hui have a long history in China, dating back to centuries of cultural interactions and trade. The culture of this population is influenced by both Islam and Chinese culture, resulting in a unique and diverse identity.
However, with increasing pressure from the Chinese government to abolish the Muslim culture and faith in the country, the Hui began to have no choice but to fight and demonstrate to maintain and preserve their religious and cultural traditions.
The Hui’s history of struggle against Chinese repression also goes back many years. During the Mao Zedong regime, Chinese ethnic and religious minorities became the main target of persecution and repression in the country. However, after the period of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Hui managed to rebuild their mosques and resume their religious practices in more distant regions.
Over the past few years, however, repression against the Hui and other Muslim ethnic minorities has increased dramatically. Chinese authorities have imposed increasingly stringent regulations on the construction and renovation of mosques, making it difficult to preserve sites sacred to the Hui. In addition, there are reports of demolition of other mosques in some regions and modifications of domes.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) China senior researcher Maya Wang reported to The Diplomat website in 2021 that people of the country’s Hui ethnicity were “definitely afraid” of increased Chinese repression of the Islamic population. She stated that the Hui feared the constant advance of the Sinization process in regions where there are monuments and traditional structures linked to the Muslim religion.
Hui rights violations in China
According to a report by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) released in March, in recent years, the Hui population has been one of the main targets of persecution and rights violations in China. The report points out that this Muslim ethnic minority faces daily discrimination, forced displacement and labor, and religious restrictions imposed by the Chinese regime.
Allegations of human rights violations led CHRD representatives to make a series of complaints to the United Nations (UN) and the international community.
According to the report, one of the main problems facing the Hui population today is the transfer of local labor, which has been coordinated by the Chinese authorities in regions such as Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan, where most Hui communities are concentrated.
These transfer programs displaced hundreds of thousands of Hui people, significantly affecting their social and cultural lives. Although the institution did not find evidence that these transfers are taking place in a coercive manner, as there is not much information released by the Chinese authorities about this process, CHRD noted that they are not planned or implemented in consultation with the affected communities.
In addition, the report highlighted several other allegations of forced labor imposed on detainees of Hui origin in the Xinjiang region. Evidence indicates that the authorities sent people of this ethnicity to work in factories without pay, rather than allowing them to return home after being released from “re-education” camps.
The institution also investigated that several official policies were established in the region aimed at coercively relocating residents to perform forced labor. CHRD pointed out that these practices violate rights to work and adequate standards of living.
Employment discrimination is another concern for the Hui population. Experts interviewed for the report point out that self-declared Muslim job applicants, including Hui and Uighurs, face significant discrimination compared to applicants from the Han ethnicity, which is predominant in China.
Other violations, such as religious restrictions in the workplace, bans on fasting during Ramadan, and restrictions on wearing religious dress, are also reported by Muslims from the Hui population in the CHRD report.
Faced with these rights violations, international human rights organizations have been demanding changes from China.
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) recommended in March this year that the Chinese state involve Muslim minority individuals and their affected communities in the design and implementation of projects to reduce poverty. and that it would provide statistical data on land expropriations and relocations of these minorities.
Furthermore, the Chinese regime was also asked to take measures to address the persistent discrimination faced by ethnic minorities in accessing employment, social security, housing, health care, education and other social services. Judging by the history of persecution, there is little hope that these measures will be put in place by the Xi Jinping regime.
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