Chinese authorities have demolished thousands of mosques in Xinjiang, an Australian think tank said on September 25, in the latest report of widespread human rights abuses in the restive region. Rights groups say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim Turkic-speaking people have been incarcerated in camps across the north-western territory, with residents pressured to give up traditional and religious activities.
Around 16,000 mosques had been destroyed or damaged, according to an Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) report based on satellite imagery documenting hundreds of sacred sites and statistical modeling.
By contrast, none of the Christian Churches and Buddhist Temples in Xinjiang that were studied by the think tank had been damaged or destroyed.