Thread by @EmilyZFeng

THREAD: 80% of imams in Henan banished. The remaining subjected to ideological training - sometimes lasting days. Islamic schools in Yunnan, Henan and Ningxia outright closed. Where Xinjiang was in 2015, the Hui across China are now going thru. My story:
npr.org/2019/09/26/763…

I got past checkpoints into Weizhou, Ningxia, where more than 1 yr ago residents staved off a demolition order. Residents told me last Nov they had to sign letters agreeing to "renovate" the mosque. State employees wld be fired if they didn't. Here's what Mosque looks like today:

A mass campaign to remove all Arabic traces, including domes from mosques, Arabic dress like the abaya, is happening across China. Surprisingly, hardest hit may be not just Ningxia but Henan. But the biggest changes are happening inside the mosque.

Security cameras installed by the local PSB (above). Islamic schools closed in such a hurry I found dirty dishes left behind. Islamic teachers interrogated. All this began in earnest April 2018 -- when the United Front took over control of China's religious affairs bureau (SARA).

Local officials seemed to hv learned from Xinjiang and covered their tracks well. "We ourselves do not even have the documents. [The United Front] takes them back at the end of each meeting," according to recording NPR got of a meeting w/ officials in Henan to demolish a dome.

The UFWD have been bolstered by a grassroots state anti-corruption effort called 扫黑除恶 or "sweep away black, root out evil" which targets real, low-level crime but also religious gatherings and proselytizing. Below, rare female Islamic school soon to be demolished in Ningxia

I'll stop here so you can listen to my radio piece feat. some of the brave people who I spoke to on tape for this piece. I met so much refreshing candor and spirited resistance among the Hui. npr.org/2019/09/26/763…

One mosque I wont share pic of was even making clear Arabic inscriptions invisible to officials who wanted them gone - but not to believers. And they'd just covered their dome rather than demolish it, appeasing authorities. Creative compromise!