Global Courant 2023-05-30 13:33:25
The mosque has expanded its minarets and dome roof in recent years, and a court has declared the additions illegal.
Police in China have given protesters blocking demolitions at an old mosque a deadline to turn themselves in for “disruption of social order” and “criminal acts”.
Authorities deployed hundreds of police officers and made arrests in the predominantly Muslim city of Nagu after clashes broke out over the weekend over the planned devastation.
Officials in Nagu, in southwestern Yunnan province, recently pushed ahead with plans to raze four minarets and the domed roof of the 13th-century Najiaying Mosque, a resident said Monday, requesting anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The mosque has expanded the minarets and dome roof in recent years, and a local court ruled that the additions were illegal.
Yunnan is home to a sizable enclave of Hui, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group that has come under pressure from widespread crackdown. President Xi Jinping has ordered the Communist Party to “sinize” the country’s ethnic and religious minorities.
‘We don’t allow them’
On Saturday, dozens of officers with batons and riot shields repulsed a crowd outside the mosque who hurled objects at them, videos circulated on social media, the witness said.
“They want to continue with forced destruction, so the people here stopped them,” a local woman who also asked not to be identified, told AFP news agency. “The mosque is home for Muslims like us. If they try to overthrow it, we certainly won’t let them.
“Buildings are just buildings – they don’t harm people or society. Why should they destroy them?”
Police have made an undetermined number of arrests in connection with the incident and several hundred officers remained in the city as of Monday, the two witnesses said.
A notice issued on Sunday by the government of Tonghai – which administers Nagu – said it had opened an investigation into “a matter that seriously disrupted social management and order”.
The message ordered those involved to “immediately stop all illegal and criminal acts”, and said they would “severely punish” anyone who refuses to turn themselves in.
“Those who voluntarily surrender (before June 6) and truthfully confess the facts of offenses and crimes may receive a lighter and more lenient sentence under the law,” it said.
China has sought to tightly control religion since President Xi came to power a decade ago, and in its crackdown on Muslims, Beijing claims it is working to combat “terrorism and extremist thoughts”.
An estimated one million Uighurs, Hui and other Muslim minorities have been detained in the western region of Xinjiang since 2017 as part of a government campaign of “re-education”.
While the effect on communities outside Xinjiang has been milder, many have seen their mosques demolished or “forcibly renovated” to conform to official beliefs about Chinese aesthetics, said David Stroup, an expert on the Hui at Britain’s University of Manchester.
