Mon 17 August 2020:
China, which has repeatedly been accused of oppressing the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, has now allegedly built a public washroom at a site where a mosque once stood in Atush of Xinjiang province in northwestern China.
The action which further confirms the alleged persecution and attacks against Uighur Muslims in China is reported to be as part of what some observers believe as a campaign aimed at breaking the community.
As per a report in Radio Free Asia (RFA), the construction of the restroom on the former site of the Tokul mosque comes days after authorities had razed two of three mosques there, as a part of directive to destroy Muslim places of worship en masse that was launched in late 2016, known as “Mosque Rectification.”
The RFA said that the move is aimed at hurting the sentiments of the Uyghurs.
In a telephonic interview with RFA, an Uyghur neighborhood committee chief from Suntagh village in Atush, said that Tokul mosque was demolished in 2018 and the public washroom was erected in its place by “Han (Chinese) comrades.”
“It is a public toilet … they have not opened it yet, but it has been built,” he said while speaking on condition of anonymity citing fear of reprisal.
He said there was no requirement of a public toilet in the area, as people have toilets in their houses and the nearby Suntagh area sees few to no tourists who would require access to lavatory.
However, the committee chief disclosed that the public washroom was likely built to cover up the debris of the demolished Tokul mosque, as well as for the needs of inspecting groups or cadres visiting the area.
China’s hardline policies against Uyghurs
Chinese president Xi Jinping initiated a series of hardline policies, as a part of which Beijing is carrying out mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. The process is on in its internment camps across Xinjiang since April 2017, reports have claimed.
As per the report, residents have said that on one of the two mosques in the village that were razed in or around autumn of 2019, a “convenience store” has come up which sells alcohol and cigarettes, which is forbidden in Islam.
According to a report in 2016, a local official in Hotan prefecture’s Lop county reported that authorities were mulling to use the site of a former mosque to open an “activities centre” as a spot for entertainment.
Another official in Hotan city’s Ilchi township told RFA had said that a former mosque site would be converted into a factory to produce underwear for a Sichuan-based company.
Apart from mosques, Chinese authorities have been systematically destroying Muslim cemeteries and other religious structures across Xinjiang since 2016.
Tang dynasty China first encountered Islam in the seventh century, more than 1,000 years before the Qing dynasty settled what is now Xinjiang. China is now home to more than 22 million Muslims, including some 11 million Uyghurs. Mosques and other religious sites in Xinjiang were badly damaged during the political upheaval of China’s 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.
Last year, the Washington-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) published a report detailing this campaign, titled “Demolishing Faith: The Destruction and Desecration of Uyghurs Mosques and Shrines,” which uses geolocation and other techniques to show that anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 mosques, shrines, and other religious sites in the region were destroyed between 2016 and 2019.
with Radio Free Asia and abplive
Photo: Jama Mosque adorned with China’s flag and propaganda banners that read ‘Love the Party, Love the Country’ in Kashgar prefecture’s Kargilik county, in an undated photo.
