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31/03/2020

Tablighi Jamaat: Delhi Nizamuddin event sparks massive search for Covid-19 cases

Image caption Hundreds have been leaving the mosque to be monitored or tested for the virus

Officials across India are searching for hundreds of people who attended a religious event in the capital that has set off several Covid-19 clusters.

At least six regions have reported cases that can be directly traced to the days-long congregation at a mosque.

Delhi officials are now clearing the building, where more than 1,000 people have been stranded since the government imposed a lockdown last week.

At least 24 have tested positive so far, the state health minister said.

They are among some 300 people who showed symptoms and have been moved to various hospital to be tested, he told the media. Another 700 have been shifted into quarantine centres, he added.

It is believed that the infections were caused by preachers who attended the event from Indonesia.

State officials have called for action to be taken against mosque officials, but they have denied any wrongdoing.

Local media reports say that Nizamuddin – the locality where the mosque is located – has been cordoned off and more than 35 buses carrying people to hospitals or quarantine centres.

The congregation – part of a 20th Century Islamic movement called Tablighi Jamaat – began at the end of February, but some of the main events were held in early March.

It’s unclear if the event was ticketed or even if the organisers maintained a roster of visitors as people attended the event throughout, with some staying on and others leaving. Even overseas visitors, some of them preachers, travelled to other parts of the country where they stayed in local mosques and met people.

A man (in yellow) dressed in protective gear drives a special service bus taking people to a quarantine facility amid concerns about the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Nizamuddin area of New Delhi on March 31, 2020

So officials have no easy way of finding out how many people attended the event or where they went. But they have already begun to trace and test.

The southern state of Telangana reported on Sunday night that six people who had attended the event died from the virus. The state’s medical officer told the BBC that more than 40 of Telangana’s 71 cases were either directly or indirectly linked to the event.

Indian-administered Kashmir reported its first death from the virus last week – a 65-year-old who had been in Delhi for the congregation. Officials told BBC Urdu that more than 40 of the region’s 48 cases could be traced back to that one patient.

A cluster has even appeared in the distant Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where six of the nine who have tested positive, had returned from the Delhi event.

The southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have said more than 3,000 people from their states had attended the event, and Tamil Nadu has traced 16 positive patients to it.

States have also asked other people who attended to come forward for testing.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has asked for a police complaint to be registered against the head of the mosque.

However, the event’s organisers have issued a statement, saying they had suspended the event and asked everyone to leave as soon as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that there would be a day-long national curfew on 22 March.

While many were able to leave, they say, others were stranded because states began to seal their borders the following day, and two days later, India imposed a 21-day lockdown, suspending buses and trains.

The mosque’s premises include dormitories that can house hundreds of people.

The organisers say they informed the local police about all of this and continued to cooperate with medical officers who came to inspect the premises.

The mosque, the statement says, “never violated any provision of law, and always tried to act with compassion and reason towards the visitors who came to Delhi from different states. It did not let them violate the medical guidelines by thronging ISBTs (bus stops) or roaming on streets.”

This is not the first time religious congregations have been blamed for the spread of coronavirus.

Tablighi Jamaat events have also been blamed for spreading cases in Indonesia and Malaysia.

And in South Korea, many positive cases were linked to the Schincheonji church, a secretive religious sect, that has since apologised for its role in the outbreak.

Source: The BBC

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16/03/2020

In Indian capital, riots deepen a Hindu-Muslim divide

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – For years, Hindus and Muslims lived and worked peacefully together in Yamuna Vihar, a densely populated Delhi district.

But the riots that raged through the district last month appear to have cleaved lasting divisions in the community, reflecting a nationwide trend as tensions over the Hindu nationalist agenda of Prime Minister Narendra Modi boil over.

Many Hindus in Yamuna Vihar, a sprawl of residential blocks and shops dotted with mosques and Hindu temples, and in other riot-hit districts of northeast Delhi, say they are boycotting merchants and refusing to hire workers from the Muslim community. Muslims say they are scrambling to find jobs at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has heightened pressure on India’s economy.

“I have decided to never work with Muslims,” said Yash Dhingra, who has a shop selling paint and bathroom fittings in Yamuna Vihar. “I have identified new workers, they are Hindus,” he said, standing in a narrow lane that was the scene of violent clashes in the riots that erupted on Feb. 23.

The trigger for the riots, the worst sectarian violence in the Indian capital in decades, was a citizenship law introduced last year that critics say marginalises India’s Muslim minority. Police records show at least 53 people, mostly Muslims, were killed and more than 200 were injured.

Dhingra said the unrest had forever changed Yamuna Vihar. Gutted homes with broken doors can be seen across the neighbourhood; electricity cables melted in the fires dangle dangerously above alleys strewn with stones and bricks used as makeshift weapons in the riots.

Most Hindu residents in the district are now boycotting Muslim workers, affecting everyone from cooks and cleaners to mechanics and fruit sellers, he said.

“We have proof to show that Muslims started the violence, and now they are blaming it on us,” Dhingra said. “This is their pattern as they are criminal-minded people.”

Those views were widely echoed in interviews with 25 Hindus in eight localities in northeast Delhi, many of whom suffered large-scale financial damages or were injured in the riots. Reuters also spoke with about 30 Muslims, most of whom said that Hindus had decided to stop working with them.

Suman Goel, a 45-year-old housewife who has lived among Muslim neighbours for 23 years, said the violence had left her in a state of shock.

“It’s strange to lose a sense of belonging, to step out of your home and avoid smiling at Muslim women,” she said. “They must be feeling the same too but it’s best to maintain a distance.”

Mohammed Taslim, a Muslim who operated a business selling shoes from a shop owned by a Hindu in Bhajanpura, one of the neighbourhoods affected by the riots, said his inventory was destroyed by a Hindu mob.

He was then evicted and his space was leased out to a Hindu businessman, he said.

“This is being done just because I am a Muslim,” said Taslim.

Many Muslims said the attack had been instigated by hardline Hindus to counter protests involving tens of thousands of people across India against the new citizenship law.

“This is the new normal for us,” said Adil, a Muslim research assistant with an economic think tank in central Delhi. “Careers, jobs and business are no more a priority for us. Our priority now is to be safe and to protect our lives.”

He declined to disclose his full name for fear of reprisals.

Emboldened by Modi’s landslide electoral victory in 2014, hardline groups began pursuing a Hindu-first agenda that has come at the expense of the country’s Muslim minority.

Vigilantes have attacked and killed a number of Muslims involved in transporting cows, which are seen as holy animals by Hindus, to slaughterhouses in recent years. The government has also adopted a tough stance with regard to Pakistan, and in August withdrew semi-autonomous privileges for Jammu and Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state.

In November, the Supreme Court ruled that a Hindu temple could be built at Ayodhya, where a right-wing mob tore down a 16th-century mosque in 1992, a decision that was welcomed by the Modi government.

The citizenship law, which eases the path for non-Muslims from neighbouring Muslim-majority nations to gain citizenship in India, was the final straw for many Muslims, as well as secular Indians, sparking nationwide protests.

Modi’s office did not respond to questions from Reuters about the latest violence.

NIGHT VIGILANTES

During the day, Hindus and Muslims shun each other in the alleys of the Delhi districts that were hardest hit by the unrest in February. At night, when the threat of violence is greater, they are physically divided by barricades that are removed in the morning.

And in some areas, permanent barriers are being erected.

On a recent evening, Tarannum Sheikh, a schoolteacher, sat watching two welders install a high gate at the entrance of a narrow lane to the Muslim enclave of Khajuri Khas, where she lives. The aim was to keep Hindus out, she said.

“We keep wooden batons with us to protect the entrance as at any time, someone can enter this alley to create trouble,” she said. “We do not trust the police anymore.”

In the adjacent Hindu neighbourhood of Bhajanpura, residents expressed a similar mistrust and sense of insecurity.

“In a way these riots were needed to unite Hindus, we did not realise that we were surrounded by such evil minds for decades,” said Santosh Rani, a 52-year-old grandmother.

She said she had been forced to lower her two grandchildren from the first floor of her house to the street below after the building was torched in the violence, allegedly by a Muslim.

“This time the Muslims have tested our patience and now we will never give them jobs,” said Rani who owns several factories and retail shops. “I will never forgive them.”

Hasan Sheikh, a tailor who has stitched clothing for Hindu and Muslim women for over 40 years, said Hindu customers came to collect their unstitched clothes after the riots.

“It was strange to see how our relationship ended,” said Sheikh, who is Muslim. “I was not at fault, nor were my women clients, but the social climate of this area is very tense. Hatred on both sides is justified.”

Source: Reuters

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11/11/2019

With Indian court ruling, Modi’s Hindu agenda barrels forward

AYODHYA/MUMBAI (Reuters) – Just six months after sweeping to re-election, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered on two major promises of his party’s Hindu agenda, electrifying his base but sowing unease among liberals and the nation’s large Muslim minority

The latest boost for Modi came on Saturday, when the Supreme Court handed Hindu groups control of a contested site where a 16th-century mosque was razed over two decades ago, paving the way for the construction of a temple there that has long been an election promise of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

That followed New Delhi’s move in August to strip Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir of its special status as a state in what Modi’s government said was a bid to integrate the restive region with the rest of predominantly-Hindu India.

Now, the BJP may move towards delivering on its third traditional plank: Creating a uniform civil code that does away with the independence of religious communities on certain issues.

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Factbox: What does India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party want to achieve?

“After just a few months of Modi 2.0, they’ve accomplished two out of three (main cultural objectives). It’s quite possible that they will accomplish all three by next year,” said Milan Vaishnav, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C.

“It’s striking that the government has moved with a clarity of purpose on its social agenda that’s completely absent when it comes to economic matters,” added Vaishnav in reference to the slowing of the country’s once red-hot economic growth.

Many Muslims have watched with a mix of fear and resignation as the BJP has morphed into the officially secular country’s near-undisputed political force.

The controversial site in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has been one of the most explosive issues in the nation of 1.3 billion, where Muslims constitute about 14% of the population.

In 1992, a rally led by the BJP and affiliate organizations spiralled out of control and a Hindu mob destroyed the Babri Masjid or mosque in the city of Ayodhya. That triggered riots in which about 2,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed across the country.

In its verdict on Saturday, the Supreme Court called the mosque’s demolition illegal but handed the plot of land to Hindus, who believe the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram, a much venerated god-king. The court directed that another plot in Ayodhya be provided to a Muslim group that contested the case.

In over a dozen interviews, Muslim community leaders, businessmen, and students said they respected the verdict but it exacerbated their sense of alienation.

“Why did the court then give a ruling which is completely one-sided? Was the court under pressure? We don’t know. We can’t trust anyone now. No door is open for us,” said local Muslim community leader Azam Quadri during evening prayers in Ayodhya.

“BEST TO BE NUMB”

While Modi himself has said the court verdict should not be seen as a “win or loss” for anyone, many Muslims Reuters spoke to expressed resignation after the ruling.

Some were bitter that a probe into the demolition has inconclusively dragged on for three decades and that many of the politicians accused of conspiring to take down the mosque are prominent BJP members. Those people have said the demolition was spontaneous and not planned.

“I feel humiliated by the Supreme Court verdict,” said one affluent Mumbai-based Muslim businessman, who declined to give his name. “Others don’t care. They have become numb. It’s best to be numb in Modi’s India.”

Some people believe that Hindu nationalists, galvanized by the Ayodhya triumph, could turn their attention to two other Uttar Pradesh mosques they believe Mughal conquerors built over the remains of Hindu temples centuries ago.

“This (verdict) seems to generate incentives for Hindus to take down mosques and resettle,” said Neelanjan Sircar, an assistant professor at Ashoka University near New Delhi.

Another likely move is the uniform civil code.

New Delhi has already taken steps toward creating such a code, with the BJP-led parliament in July outlawing the centuries-old right of a Muslim man to instantly divorce his wife. While many activists thought the Muslim custom was wrong, some Muslim groups said Modi was targeting them while turning a blind eye to discrimination in Hindu society.

For a factbox on the BJP’s plans, please see:

Despite the focus on social issues, political analysts predict the government and the BJP will have to shift attention quickly to a sagging economy and surging unemployment or risk losing popular support.

India, long touted as the world’s fastest-growing large economy, has seen economic expansion wither to six-year lows.

Two college students – one Hindu, one Muslim – in Uttar Pradesh’s capital Lucknow separately said after the court verdict that they hoped the government would now focus on economic issues.

“This case has gone on for so long… Now that it’s done with altogether, maybe more economic issues can come forward”, said Rajat Mishra, a business student.

“Attention can now move beyond topics of religion,” said medical student Irfan, 22, who declined to give his surname.

Source: Reuters

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16/10/2019

Ayodhya dispute: The complex legal history of India’s holy site

In this file photograph taken on December 6, 1992 Hindu youths clamour atop the 16th century Muslim Babri Mosque five hours before the structure was completely demolished by hundreds supporting Hindu fundamentalist activists. — Image caption The dispute turned to violence in 1992 when a Hindu mob destroyed a mosque at the site

The Ayodhya dispute, which stretches back more than a century, is one of India’s thorniest court cases and goes to the heart of its identity politics.

Hindus believe that Ayodhya, a city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, is the birthplace of one of their most revered deities, Lord Ram.

But Muslims say they have worshipped there for generations.

A court case pertaining to the ownership of the land has been dragging on in the Supreme Court for years, but a verdict is expected next month.

The court concluded its final hearing into the case on Wednesday.

What is the row actually about?

At the centre of the row is a 16th Century mosque that was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, sparking riots that killed nearly 2,000 people.

Many Hindus believe that the Babri Masjid was actually constructed on the ruins of a Hindu temple that was demolished by Muslim invaders.

Muslims say they offered prayers at the mosque until December 1949 when some Hindus placed an idol of Ram in the mosque and began to worship the idols.

Over the decades since, the two religious groups have gone to court many times over who should control the site.

Since then, there have been calls to build a temple on the spot where the mosque once stood.

The case currently being heard by five judges in the top court is to determine who the land in question belongs to.

A verdict is expected between 4 and 15 November.

Hinduism is India’s majority religion and is thought to be more than 4,000 years old. India’s first Islamic dynasty was established in the early 13th Century.

Who is fighting the case?

The long and complicated property dispute has been dragging in various courts for more than a century.

This particular case is being fought between three main parties – two Hindu groups and the Muslim Waqf Board, which is responsible for the maintenance of Islamic properties in India.

Ramu Ramdev, OSD at the City Palace, points out Lord Ramas birth place in an old dilapidated map of Ayodhya depicting the birthplace of Lord Rama, being taken out from archives of erstwhile royal family of Jaipur, at City Palace, on August 11, 2019 in Jaipur, India.

The Hindu litigants are the Hindu Mahasabha, a right-wing political party, and the Nirmohi Akhara, which is a sect of Hindu monks.

They filed a title dispute in the Allahabad High Court in 2002, a decade after the mosque was demolished.

A verdict in that case was pronounced in September 2010 – it determined that the 2.77 acres of the disputed land would be divided equally into three parts.

The court ruled that the site should be split, with the Muslim community getting control of a third, Hindus another third and the Nirmohi Akhara sect the remainder. Control of the main disputed section, where the mosque once stood, was given to Hindus.

The judgement also made three key observations.

It affirmed the disputed spot was the birthplace of Lord Ram, that the Babri Masjid was built after the demolition of a Hindu temple and that it was not built in accordance with the tenets of Islam.

The Supreme Court suspended this ruling in 2011 after both Hindu and Muslim groups appealed against it.

What are the other important legal developments?

In 1994 the Supreme Court, which was ruling on a related case, remarked that the concept of a mosque was “not integral to Islam”. This has bolstered the case made by Hindus who want control of the entire site.

In April 2018, senior lawyer Rajeev Dhavan filed a plea before the top court, asking judges to reconsider this observation.

But a few months later the Supreme Court declined to do so.

VHP saints at Karsevak Puram taking park in Hindu Swabhiman Sammelan organized by the VHP to mark 25th anniversary Babri Masjid demolition, on December 6, 2017 in Ayodhya — Image caption Hindu activists are demanding the construction of the Ram Temple

Have religious tensions eased in India in recent years?

Ever since the Narendra Modi-led Hindu nationalist BJP first came to power in 2014, India has seen deepening social and religious divisions.

The call for the construction of a Hindu temple in Ayodhya has grown particularly loud, and has mostly come from MPs, ministers and leaders from the BJP since it took office.

Restrictions on the sale and slaughter of cows – considered a holy animal by the majority Hindus – have led to vigilante killings of a number of people, most of them Muslims who were transporting cattle.

An uninhibited display of muscular Hindu nationalism in other areas has also contributed to religious tension.

Most recently, the country’s home minister Amit Shah said he would remove “illegal migrants” – understood to be Muslim – from the country through a government scheme that was used recently in the north-eastern state of Assam.

Source: The BBC

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08/07/2019

Seven Silk Road destinations, from China to Italy: towns that grew rich on trade

Settlements along the route linking Europe and Asia thrived by providing accommodation and services for countless traders
Formally established during the Han dynasty, it was a 19th-century German geographer who coined the term Silk Road

The ruins of a fortified gatehouse and customs post at Yunmenguan Pass, in China’s Gansu province. Photo: Alamy

We have a German geographer, cartographer and explorer to thank for the name of the world’s most famous network of transcontinental trade routes.

Formally established during the Han dynasty, in the first and second centuries BC, it wasn’t until 1877 that Ferdinand von Richthofen coined the term Silk Road (historians increasingly favour the collective term Silk Routes).

The movement of merchandise between China and Europe had been taking place long before the Han arrived on the scene but it was they who employed troops to keep the roads safe from marauding nomads.

Commerce flourished and goods as varied as carpets and camels, glassware and gold, spices and slaves were traded; as were horses, weapons and armour.

Merchants also moved medicines but they were no match for the bubonic plague, which worked its way west along the Silk Road before devastating huge swathes of 14th century Europe.

What follows are some of the countless kingdoms, territories, (modern-day) nations and cities that grew rich on the proceeds of trade, taxes and tolls.

China

A watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang, a desert outpost at the crossroads of two major Silk Road routes in China’s northwestern Gansu province. Photo: Alamy

Marco Polo worked in the Mongol capital, Khanbaliq (today’s Beijing), and was struck by the level of mercantile activity.

The Venetian gap-year pioneer wrote, “Every day more than a thousand carts loaded with silk enter the city, for a great deal of cloth of gold and silk is woven here.”

Light, easy to transport items such as paper and tea provided Silk Road traders with rich pickings, but it was China’s monopoly on the luxurious shimmering fabric that guaranteed huge profits.

So much so that sneaking silk worms out of the empire was punishable by death.

The desert outpost of Dunhuang found itself at the crossroads of two major Silk Road trade arteries, one leading west through the Pamir Mountains to Central Asia and another south to India.

Built into the Great Wall at nearby Yunmenguan are the ruins of a fortified gatehouse and customs post, which controlled the movement of Silk Road caravans.

Also near Dunhuang, the Mogao Caves contain one of the richest collections of Buddhist art treasures anywhere in the world, a legacy of the route to and from the subcontinent.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain was an inescapable part of the Silk Road, until maritime technologies would become the area’s undoing. Photo: Shutterstock

For merchants and middlemen hauling goods through Central Asia, there was no way of bypassing the mountainous lands we know today as Afghanistan.

Evidence of trade can be traced back to long before the Silk Road – locally mined lapis lazuli stones somehow found their way to ancient Egypt, and into Tutankhamun’s funeral mask, created in 1323BC.

Jagged peaks, rough roads in Tajikistan, roof of the world

Besides mercantile exchange, the caravan routes were responsible for the sharing of ideas and Afghanistan was a major beneficiary. Art, philosophy, language, science, food, architecture and technology were all exchanged, along with commercial goods.

In fact, maritime technology would eventually be the area’s undoing. By the 15th century, it had become cheaper and more convenient to transport cargo by sea – a far from ideal development for a landlocked region.

Iran

The Ganjali Khan Complex, in Iran. Photo: Shutterstock

Thanks to the Silk Road and the routes that preceded it, the northern Mesopotamian region (present-day Iran) became China’s closest trading partner. Traders rarely journeyed the entire length of the trail, however.

Merchandise was passed along by middlemen who each travelled part of the way and overnighted in caravanserai, fortified inns that provided accommodation, storerooms for goods and space for pack animals.

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With so many wheeler-dealers gathering in one place, the hostelries developed into ad hoc marketplaces.

Marco Polo writes of the Persian kingdom of Kerman, where craftsmen made saddles, bridles, spurs and “arms of every kind”.

Today, in the centre of Kerman, the former caravanserai building forms part of the Ganjali Khan Complex, which incorporates a bazaar, bathhouse and mosque.

Uzbekistan

A fort in Khiva, Uzbekistan. Photo: Alamy

The double-landlocked country boasts some of the Silk Road’s most fabled destinations. Forts, such as the one still standing at Khiva, were built to protect traders from bandits; in fact, the city is so well-preserved, it is known as the Museum under the Sky.

The name Samarkand is also deeply entangled with the history of the Silk Road.

The earliest evidence of silk being used outside China can be traced to Bactria, now part of modern Uzbekistan, where four graves from around 1500BC-1200BC contained skeletons wrapped in garments made from the fabric.

Three thousand years later, silk weaving and the production and trade of textiles remain one of Samarkand’s major industries.

Georgia

A street in old town of Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo: Alamy

Security issues in Persia led to the opening up of another branch of the legendary trade route and the first caravan loaded with silk made its way across Georgia in AD568.

Marco Polo referred to the weaving of raw silk in “a very large and fine city called Tbilisi”.

Today, the capital has shaken off the Soviet shackles and is on the cusp of going viral.

Travellers lap up the city’s monasteries, walled fortresses and 1,000-year-old churches before heading up the Georgian Military Highway to stay in villages nestling in the soaring Caucasus Mountains.

Public minibuses known as marshrutka labour into the foothills and although the vehicles can get cramped and uncomfortable, they beat travelling by camel.

Jordan

Petra, in Jordan. Photo: Alamy

The location of the Nabataean capital, Petra, wasn’t chosen by chance.

Savvy nomadic herders realised the site would make the perfect pit-stop at the confluence of several caravan trails, including a route to the north through Palmyra (in modern-day Syria), the Arabian peninsula to the south and Mediterranean ports to the west.

Huge payments in the form of taxes and protection money were collected – no wonder the most magnificent of the sandstone city’s hand-carved buildings is called the Treasury.

The Red Rose City is still a gold mine – today’s tourists pay a hefty

US$70 fee to enter Petra

. The Nabataeans would no doubt approve.

Venice

Tourists crowd onto Venice’s Rialto Bridge. Photo: Alamy

Trade enriched Venice beyond measure, helping shape the Adriatic entrepot into the floating marvel we see today.

Besides the well-documented flow of goods heading west, consignments of cotton, ivory, animal furs, grapevines and other goods passed through the strategically sited port on their way east.

Ironically, for a city built on trade and taxes, the biggest problem Venice faces today is visitors who don’t contribute enough to the local economy.

A lack of spending by millions of day-tripping tourists and cruise passengers who aren’t liable for nightly hotel taxes has prompted authorities to introduce a citywide access fee from January 2020.

Two thousand years ago, tariffs and tolls helped Venice develop and prosper. Now they’re needed to prevent its demise.

Source: SCMP

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05/06/2019

Xinjiang’s vanishing mosques highlight pressure on China’s Muslims as Ramadan ends with a whimper

Few signs of Eid celebrations after crackdown that has seen a reported million Uygurs and other minorities interned in camps
Muslims in far western Chinese region say they are now ‘too scared’ to practise their faith in public

Worshippers leave a mosque in Kasghar after prayers on Wednesday. Photo: AFP

The corner where Heyitkah mosque in China’s far western region of Xinjiang once hummed with life is now a car park where all traces of the tall, domed building have been erased.

While Muslims around the world celebrated the end of Ramadan with prayers and festivities this week, the recent destruction of dozens of mosques in Xinjiang highlights the increasing pressure Uygurs and other ethnic minorities face in the heavily policed region.

Behind the car park in the city of Hotan, the slogan “Educate the people for the party” is emblazoned in red on the wall of a primary school where students must scan their faces upon entering the razor-wired gates.

The mosque “was beautiful,” recalled a vendor at a nearby bazaar. “There were a lot of people there.”

Satellite images reviewed by AFP and visual analysis non-profit Earthrise Alliance show that 36 mosques and religious sites have been torn down or had their domes and corner spires removed since 2017.

Satellite images from 2014 (top) and March this year show the disappearance of the dome of the Karamay West Mosque in Xinjiang. Photo: AFP/ Distribution Airbus Defence and Space/ CNES 2019/ Produced By Earthrise

In the mosques that are open, worshippers go through metal detectors while surveillance cameras monitor them inside.

“The situation here is very strict, it takes a toll on my heart,” said one Uygur, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. “I don’t go any more,” he added, referring to mosques. “I’m scared.”

In the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, no longer does the sunrise call for prayer echo throughout the city – a ritual the manager of the city’s central mosque once proudly shared with touristsOn Wednesday, locals celebrating Eid al-Fitr quietly filed into the entrance of state-approved Idkah Mosque – one of the largest in China – as police and officials fenced off the wide square surrounding the building and plain clothes men monitored every person’s actions.

It was another low-key Ramadan for Muslims in Xinjiang, where restaurants were busy serving food to customers throughout the day, a time when practising Muslims fast.

In Hotan on Friday – a holy day for believers – the only mosque in the city was empty after sundown, an important prayer session when Muslim families typically break their daily Ramadan fast.

Earlier in the day, at least 100 people attended a midday session but the vast majority were elderly men.

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The ruling Communist Party “sees religion as this existential threat”, said James Leibold, an expert on ethnic relations and policy in China at La Trobe University.

Over the long term, the Chinese government wants to achieve “the secularisation of Chinese society,” he told AFP.

The Xinjiang government told AFP that it “protects religious freedoms” and citizens can celebrate Ramadan “within the scope permitted by law”, without elaborating.

The authorities have thrown a hi-tech security net across the region, installing cameras, mobile police stations and checkpoints in seemingly every street in response to a spate of deadly attacks blamed on Islamic extremists and separatists in recent years.

An estimated one million Uygurs and other Turkic-speaking ethnic groups are held in a vast network of internment camps.

After initially denying their existence, Chinese authorities last year acknowledged that they run “vocational education centres” aimed at steering people clear of religious extremism by teaching them Mandarin and China’s laws.

In those centres, it was a different Ramadan.

The Xinjiang government told AFP that people in the centres are not allowed to hold religious activities because Chinese law forbids it within education facilities, but they are free to do so “when they return home on weekends”.

Uygur men dance after Eid al-Fitr prayers in Kashgar. Photo: Greg Baker/ AFP

In recent years, Chinese authorities have ramped up controls on public displays of religion and Islamic traditions in Xinjiang.

AFP reporters did not see any veiled women and few men sporting long beards during a week-long visit to the region. Former internment camp inmates have said they were incarcerated for these outward signs of their religion.

Places of worship too have become targets of Beijing’s draconian security measures.

Human Rights Watch decodes surveillance app used to classify people in China’s Xinjiang region

In the satellite images analysed by AFP and Earthrise Alliance, 30 religious sites were completely demolished while six had their domes and corner spires removed.

AFP reporters visited about half a dozen sites, and found that some mosques had been repurposed into public spaces.

Police officers blocked journalists from entering Artux, just north of Kashgar, where the town’s grand mosque and dozens of other community mosques were destroyed.

The area is some 22 kilometres (14 miles) away from an enormous complex believed to be a re-education centre. Visible from a nearby village, the facility has razor-wired walls, watchtowers and imposing block buildings.In Kashgar, two cameras perched on the columns of a former mosque point at its entrance. There is no minaret or dome – instead, a shop selling dresses lies to its right alongside houses.

A demolished mosque in Hotan has been converted into a garden, paved with concrete walkways and sparsely planted trees.

On the outskirts of town, situated between a cemetery and sand dunes, two white flags and a pile of burned refuse and debris was all that was left of an old shrine named Imam Asim.

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Uygurs consider these mosques and shrines “their ancestral heritage,” said Omer Kanat, director of the Uygur Human Rights Project.

“The Chinese government just wants to erase everything … that is different from Han, everything which belongs to Uygur culture or Islamic culture in the region,” he said.

Juma Maimaiti, the official imam of Idkah Mosque, told AFP in an interview arranged by the propaganda department that the demolition of mosques “has never happened here”.

“But our government has proceeded to protect some key mosques,” he added, and said that the city of Kashgar has over 150 mosques.

A propaganda slogan and surveillance camera at a mosque in Yangisar, south of Kashgar. Photo: AFP

Though Beijing’s restrictions on religious piety, such as fasting, are not new, observers say conditions have deteriorated to the point where celebrations for the holy month in Xinjiang are reduced or largely invisible.

Islamic greetings and openly fasting in public are no longer permitted, said Darren Byler, a lecturer at the University of Washington who focuses on Uygur culture.

While there are Uygurs who continue to practise their faith, they are “internalising it at this moment – they’re not expressing it openly,” he said.

EU calls out Beijing on human rights but activists want harder line against China’s Xinjiang and Tibet policy

At state-backed mosques, religious activity is controlled as Beijing pursues a five-year plan to “Sinicise” Islam as the “only way for a healthy development of Islam” in the country, said Yang Faming, president.

Source: SCMP

Posted in Artux, Beijing, chinese government, Chinese Society, dome, draconian security measures, Earthrise Alliance, Eid al-Fitr prayers, Eid celebrations, Heyitkah mosque, Hotan, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Idkah Mosque, Kasghar, minaret, Mosque, Muslims, Ramadan, secularisation, Silk Road, Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, Uncategorized, Uygur Human Rights Project, Uygurs, vanishing mosques, Xinjiang | Leave a Comment »

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