Thread by @samjoiner

🚨 EXC: Thousands of mosques in China have been altered or destroyed as Beijing’s suppression of Islam spreads to almost every region of the country.

W/ @YuanfenYang @upyorkshire @peterjandringa @evawxiao @inari_ta @maxharlow @leahyjoseph @sunyu1117

👉 ft.com/china-mosques

Satellite-based analysis of 2,312 mosques once featuring Islamic architecture shows that three-quarters have been modified or destroyed since 2018.

ig.ft.com/china-mosques/

Buildings have been stripped of their Arabic features, with Islamic architecture often replaced with traditional Chinese designs. Some mosques have even been torn down. Modifications were more systematic in areas with larger Muslim populations.

ft.com/china-mosques

Mosque demolitions and modifications have been documented in Xinjiang, the northwestern region where hundreds of thousands of Turkic Muslims have been detained, and there has been some evidence of architectural changes elsewhere in China.

ft.com/china-mosques

But our visual investigation is the first to document the scale and spread of the policy, finding that Beijing’s crackdown on Islamic culture has spread to almost every region of the country.

ft.com/china-mosques

Investigation with a truly brilliant team of @YuanfenYang @upyorkshire @peterjandringa @evawxiao @inari_ta @maxharlow @leahyjoseph and @sunyu1117. Huge thanks to many of the wider @ftdata team for their help with this story too