The mosque was demolished, One Hundred Chinese Muslims Clash with Police

The mosque was demolished, One Hundred Chinese Muslims Clash with Police



A clash erupted on Friday last week in Hexi, a city in the Ningxia region. Cause, a mosque was destroyed because of construction declared illegal.

 www.abna.ir reported, around a thousand local police come and knock down the mosque. This was conveyed by Information Centre for Human Rights (Human Rights) and Democracy, Hong Kong.

In the clashes were reported at least 50 people were injured and more than 100 people were arrested after several hundred members of the Chinese Hui Muslim minority trying to stop the demolition of the mosque.

A local resident said that in the clash, there are two people who died. However, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy claimed Hong Kong can not confirm the news.

Local police also denied reports that there are Hui Muslims died. Ethnic Hui is one of several Muslim minorities in China. They include descendants of Muslim immigrants from Central Asia, a member of the majority ethnic Han Chinese who converted to Islam and several other groups.


Clashes after mosque demolished in China

Reports from China says hundreds of Muslims have fought with armed police who demolished a mosque in north of the country.

The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy says the violence began after police declared the newly renovated mosque illegal and moved in to destroy it.

It says two people were killed and 50 injured after police used tear gas, knives and batons to beat back ethnic Hui Muslim protesters.

Police contacted by phone say two people were injured but no-one was killed.

Chinese police destroy villagers' new mosque

Residents of a Taoshan village in north-western China were left shocked after a violent clash with armed police who came with water cannon and tear gas then demolished a newly refurbished mosque before arresting scores of people last week.

Hundreds of police arrived in the village in the Hexi region of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region on Thursday, the day before the demolition took place. Power and communication links were cut at 11pm that night, according to one villager, who wanted to remain anonymous. Police raided several homes.

Villagers had raised 800,000 yuan (£82,000) to refurbish the mosque and there were plans for a grand opening on 1 January. But more than 50 people, mostly members of the Muslim Hui minority, were injured and 100 detained after they tried to stop the demolition. The police used water cannon and tear gas and then beat people.

The altercation highlights religious tensions in the country, which has about 20 million Muslims, about half of them hailing from the Hui ethnic minority.

Although the government has allowed Muslims to rebuild their places of worship after they were destroyed by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, it keeps a close watch on all forms of religious activity.

Separatist activity by the Uighurs in Xinjiang province has also meant that Muslim communities across China have been subject to special scrutiny.

Chinese Muslims clash with police over mosque

Hundreds of Muslims in a northwestern China village trying to prevent the demolition of their mosque clashed with police, causing several deaths, Hong Kong media and residents said on Tuesday.

Fighting between police and members of the largely Muslim Hui ethnic group broke out on Friday in Ningxia region, adjacent to Inner Mongolia province, after authorities declared their newly built mosque illegal, the South China Morning Post said.

Hundreds of residents in Taoshan village confronted police armed with teargas, truncheons and knives, the newspaper said.

A Taoshan resident told Reuters he was away at the time of the clash, but that his relatives in the town believed five people, including one of their relatives, had been killed. The resident, Jin Haitao, said villagers believed the dead included another two elderly woman, a young man and two people from nearby areas.

Residents of nearby areas complained that telephone links with Taoshan had been cut, making it impossible to verify what had happened.

"They were just trying to hold a religious activity but the authorities would not allow it. They demolished the mosque and now they've covered over the ground, because there was so much blood on the ground," Jin said.

A man who answered the telephone at a police station in the nearby town of Hexi said an incident had occurred with Hui protesters, but he gave no details. Calls to the public security bureau in nearby Tongxin county went unanswered.

Sporadic unrest
A small business owner in Tongxin, three km (two miles) from the mosque site, told Reuters that the village had been sealed off. "It's ridiculous, I am a Muslim, and Muslims need a mosque. They are just ordinary people, coming together for religious purposes, not to overthrow Communist Party rule," the man said.

China has experienced sporadic unrest among its Muslim minorities, most notably involving the Uighurs, a Turkic language-speaking people native to the country's western Xinjiang region. There are about 10 million Hui in China, making them the country's largest Muslim group.

In many parts of China, the Hui have blended in with the predominant Han Chinese culture, all but abandoning Islam except for some traditions, such as circumcising male children and avoiding pork. But ethnic tension has led to some unrest. At least seven people were killed in the central province of Henan in 2004 after a car accident involving an ethnic Han Chinese and a Hui sparked rioting.

In 1993, a cartoon ridiculing Muslims led to police storming a mosque taken over by Hui in northwestern China. Uighurs in Xinjiang rioted against Han Chinese residents in 2009 and at least 197 people were killed, according to official estimates. China's ruling Communist Party says it protects freedom of religion, but it maintains a tight grip on religious activities and allows only officially recognised religious institutions to operate.