Drive sows climate of fear

In Xinjiang, anti-government attacks have led to a crackdown and the internment of a million Uighurs. Photo / AP

It is sunset and the faithful are being called to prayer in one of the largest mosques in the northern Chinese province of Ningxia - but here there is no wailing muezzin's call, just the sound of a tiny congregation shuffling in quietly off the street.

By the time prayers begin, there are only about 40 pairs of shoes in the entrance hall of the Nanguan mosque that once accommodated hundreds of worshippers from China's Hui - the largest of the country's 10 Muslim minority groups at 10.5 million. This year its congregation has shrunk sharply.

One reason for the empty prayer mats is a ban by the Chinese Government on all Communist Party members from attending daily prayers at mosques. The call to prayer which once echoed morning and night over the region's capital, Yinchuan, is banned too.

And as a constant reminder of where loyalties must lie, a Chinese flag flutters in the courtyard, an obligatory requirement for all China's mosques since May. "We are very scared," one local imam says, requesting anonymity. He says that the Chinese state is now reaching into the lives of Muslims like never before.

President Xi Jinping has vowed to "Sinicise" religion by stamping out what the officially atheist ruling Communist Party considers a worrying trend of Islamisation.

In the far western province of Xinjiang, 1930km away from Ningxia, violent anti-government attacks have led to a crackdown and the internment of a million Uighurs. Detainees caught up in the cultural eradication programme recount stories of political indoctrination, psychological abuse and torture. All are subject to intense surveillance in what has become a police state, heightened with modern tools such as facial recognition and DNA collection.

Ningxia authorities recently signed a cooperation agreement so their officials learn from the latter's policies.

The suppression of Islam in Ningxia is nowhere close to Xinjiang levels, but in Yinchuan the early signs of a cultural eradication drive are visible. Arabic signs are scratched out in the streets, copies of the Koran have disappeared from bookshop shelves and the onion-shaped domes have been removed from buildings all across the city.

The Chinese state, a massive provider of jobs, has the levers to impose its will - for example, by banning government workers from wearing white prayer caps to work.

In the local market one woman said police had raided her store, ordering her to cut out Arabic labels from inside the prayer hats on the shelves. Fearing more trouble, she also turned the few decorative plates in the display window inward so the Arabic script cannot be seen from outside. It is an introversion visible throughout this minority community, which can trace its roots back to the ancient Silk Road traders of central Asia.