https://news.yahoo.com/china-destroy...132401785.html

The bright green onion-shaped domes and golden minarets that used to soar into the sky atop Nanguan Mosque have all been pulled down. Golden Islamic-style filigree, decorative arches, and Arabic script that before adorned the mosque have also been stripped away.

What remains is unrecognisable – a drab, gray, rectangular facility with “Nanguan Mosque” written in Chinese, as shown in photos posted online by Christina Scott, the UK’s deputy head of mission in China, on a recent trip.

Islamic-style onion domes and decorative elements are also being axed from mosques in neighbouring Gansu province, home to Linxia, a city nicknamed “Little Mecca” for its history as a centre for Islamic faith and culture in China.

Erasing Islamic decorative elements from mosques is yet another step Chinese authorities are taking under Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, who has vowed to ‘Sinicise’ religion.

In Xinjiang, things have taken an especially sinister turn with “re-education” camps that subject detainees to horrific physical torture, political indoctrination and forced labour. Growing a beard, fasting and reading the Koran have all been deemed suspicious behaviour by the government and reason enough to be interned in camps.

Schools that previously taught Arabic language and trained imams have also been forced to shutter, the Telegraph has reported. Instead, the government has set up special schools to train imams to have the “correct political stance,” according to Chinese state media.

Chinese authorities are “really worried about external religious influence and authority,” said Dru Gladney, an expert in China’s ethnic minority groups and a professor of anthropology at Pomona College.

Being religious “is a threat to the political authority to the state; you’re giving allegiance to a non-Chinese authority,” said Mr Gladney.

“Whether it’s the Dalai Lama or the Pope, or it’s the head of Falun Gong [a spiritual group], the state won’t tolerate it.”