Reuters could not establish if the place was currently functioning as a mosque.

Within minutes of reporters arriving, four men in plainclothes showed up and took up positions around the site, locking gates to nearby residential buildings.

The men told the reporters it was illegal to take photos and to leave.

"There's no mosque here … there has never been a mosque at this site," said one of the men in response to a question from Reuters if there was a mosque inside. He declined to identify himself.

Minarets on the building's four corners, visible in publicly available satellite images in 2019, have gone.

A large blue metal box stood where the mosque's central dome had once been. It was not clear if it was a place of worship at the time the satellite images were taken.

In recent months, China has stepped up a campaign on state media and with government-arranged tours to counter the criticism of researchers, rights groups and former Xinjiang residents who say thousands of mosques have been targeted in a crackdown on the region's mostly Muslim Uyghur people.

Officials from Xinjiang and Beijing told reporters in Beijing that no religious sites had been forcibly destroyed or restricted and invited them to visit and report.

"Instead, we have taken a series of measures to protect them," Elijan Anayat, a spokesman for the Xinjiang government, said of mosques late last year.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Wednesday some mosques had been demolished, while others had been upgraded and expanded as part of rural revitalization but Muslims could practice their religion openly at home and in mosques.

Asked about restrictions authorities put on journalists visiting the area, Hua said reporters had to try harder to "win the trust of the Chinese people" and report objectively.

Reuters visited more than two dozen mosques across seven counties in southwest and central Xinjiang on a 12-day visit during Ramadan, which ended on Thursday.

There is a contrast between Beijing's campaign to protect mosques and religious freedom and the reality on the ground. Most of the mosques that Reuters visited had been partially or completely demolished.

China has repeatedly said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from separatists and religious extremists who plot attacks and stir up tension between Uyghurs who call the region home and the ethnic Han, China's largest ethnic group.

A mass crackdown that includes a campaign of restrictions on religious practice and what rights groups describe as the forced political indoctrination of more than a million Uyghurs and other Muslims began in earnest in 2017.

China initially denied detaining people in detention camps, but has since said they are vocational training centres and that the people have "graduated" from them.

The government says there are more than 20,000 mosques in Xinjiang but no detailed data on their status is available.

Some functioning mosques have signs saying congregants must register while citizens from outside the area, foreigners and anyone under the age of 18 are banned from going in.

Functioning mosques feature surveillance cameras and include Chinese flags and propaganda displays declaring loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.

Visiting reporters were almost always followed by plainclothes personnel and warned not to take photographs.

A Han woman, who said she had moved to the city of Hotan six years ago from central China, said Muslims who wanted to pray could do so at home.

"There are no Muslims like that here anymore," the woman said, referring to those who used to pray at the mosque. She added: "Life in Xinjiang is beautiful." Continue reading

Hospitals regularly force late-term abortions on Uyghur women and kill newborn Uyghur babies, says Hasiyet Abdulla, who presently lives in Turkey.

Abdulla is one of many Uyghurs who have fled to Turkey.

She says hospital maternity wards in Xinjiang strictly enforce family planning laws, including limiting Uyghurs (an ethnic minority group in China), to three children in rural areas or two in urban regions.

Uyghur women must also wait a certain number of years between births.

"The regulations were so strict: there had to be three or four years between children. There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labour. They did that in the maternity wards, because those were the orders," Abdulla says.

She says in many cases, babies born alive were removed from their parents, killed and then disposed of.

This practice stems from "an order that's been given from above," says Abdulla.

Hospitals found to have been in violation of these policies are subjected to fines or other punishments.

The claims of Uyghurs' late-term abortions and infanticide follow recent revelations that Chinese authorities have been forcibly sterilising ethnic minorities.

A report on 29 June from Associated Press says women are imprisoned for the crime of having too many children and women held in internment camps are frequently checked for pregnancy.

In some cases, women are forcibly implanted with an intrauterine device to prevent future pregnancies.

"It's not an immediate, shocking, mass-killing-on-the-spot-type genocide, but it's a slow, painful, creeping genocide," Dr. Joanne Smith Finley, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, says.

She says the programme is a "direct means of genetically reducing the Uyghur population."

The birth rate in the province has dropped considerably since the implementation of forced abortion and infanticide and other family-planning practices.

Between one- and 1.8-million Uyghurs are estimated to be in detention camps set up by Chinese authorities, for "re-education" purposes.

Survivors report indoctrination, beatings, forced labour and torture in the camps.

Wives of Uyghur men detained in the "re-education" camps have reported being forced to marry Han Chinese men. Hans are the majority ethnic group in China.

The U.S. government has sanctioned Chinese officials who are involved with the oppression of the Uyghur population.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Association for the Defense of Human Rights and Religious Freedom