China cracking down on mosques outside Xinjiang: Human Rights Watch

China is shutting down mosques in areas outside of Xinjiang, in violation of the right to freedom of religion, according to a new report released Wednesday from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The Chinese government has expanded its policy of “mosque consolidation,” which has targeted the Muslim population in Xinjiang for years. Since 2017, Chinese authorities have destroyed or damaged two-thirds of Xinjiang’s mosques, HRW said, citing the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). About half of those mosques have been demolished.

“In Xinjiang, the Chinese government’s aggressive assimilationist policies in ethnic minority regions have led to severe abuses that amount to crimes against humanity, such as cultural persecution. These abuses include the systematic destruction of numerous mosques,” the HRW report said.

The report alleged government documents suggest China has been enforcing the same policy on the provinces of Ningxia and Gansu, which have the highest Muslim populations in the country after Xinjiang. The practice is part of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s call for the “Sinicization” of religions, which seeks to expand the role that the Chinese Communist Party plays in people’s religious lives, effectively expanding state control over religion, HRW said.  

“The Chinese government is not ‘consolidating’ mosques as it claims, but closing many down in violation of religious freedom,” said HRW acting China Director Maya Wang said in the report. “The Chinese government’s closure, destruction, and repurposing of mosques is part of a systematic effort to curb the practice of Islam in China.”

HRW was unable to identify the exact number of mosques that have been shut down or repurposed in Ningxia and Gansu, but the report cited forthcoming research that estimates one-third of mosques in Ningxia have been closed since 2020.  

The report cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides for the freedom of “thought, conscience and religion,” and called on the Chinese government to reverse these policies and release those detained for violating them.

The report also called on foreign governments, in particular member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), to increase pressure on China to end this campaign against the Muslim population.

“The Chinese government’s policies of Sinicization show a blanket disregard for freedom of religion not only of all Muslims in China, but all religious communities in the country,” Wang said in the report. “Governments concerned about religious freedom should raise these issues directly with the Chinese government and at the United Nations and other international forums.”

The Biden administration has been critical of China’s treatment of religious minorities, particularly of Muslim Uyghurs, which the U.S. formally declared a genocide in an official U.S. report on human rights in 2021.

“Genocide and crimes against humanity occurred during the year against the predominantly Muslim Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minority groups in Xinjiang,” the report read.