Memes

🤷 Not every YouTube video. Maybe every YouTube video that the algorithm shows you.

• Is Islam banned in China? | Visiting mosques in Xinjiang
• This is What I Found in Xinjiang China: I was warned Not to Come Here In this exclusive inside look at China's most controversial region, we tour one China's oldest mosques and interview the Imam on the truth about Xinjiang.
• How is Life of Muslims in China 🇨🇳 | First Impression of Urumqi, Xinjiang | Uyghur People
• Islam Banned in China!? I Visit Mosques and was shocked!
• Xinjiang residents debunk rumors of "forced demolition of mosques"
• Visiting a mosque in Xinjiang, understanding the truth about religious freedom in China
• Did China really destroy its Mosques?
• Visiting Kuqa Mosque - Xinjiang - China - 库车大寺
• Debunking rumors: Is centuries-old Uyghur mosque defaced in China's Xinjiang?

I’m disappointed that you are offering a low-quality source like the Financial Times for these serious accusations, and the shoddy reporting is apparent in the article itself:

In many areas, officials have told current and retired civil servants that their benefits will be taken away if they worship more than a few times per year, according to Hui human rights campaigner Ma Ju.

Which officals? Which current and retired civil servants? And why is the only source for this ‘a US-based campaigner for Chinese Muslim rights’? The lack of corroboration should be worrying. Relying on pseudonymous sources is usually not good reporting, either, as they have as many credentials as a common rumourer.

The conclusion is also confusing:

Two years later, these remarks were formalised into the government’s “Five-Year Plan on the Sinicisation of Islam”, which set out to standardise Chinese style in everything from Islamic attire to ceremonies and architecture, and called for the “establishment of an Islamic theology with Chinese characteristics”.

Hui Muslims like Mohammed still fear a possible future without Islam in China.

So, wait, Beijing wants to destroy Islam by… reforming it? I guess that that could be possible in some way, but the article does not explain how.

That being said, I don’t want to dismiss every claim in this article at face value, like restricting religion to adults (which, honestly, might be for the best), but if I believed that Beijing was trying to eradicate Islam then I would be dissatisfied with this article’s quality.

Although this does make me wonder if there are Chinese Muslims consenting to or even ordering these reformations. Perhaps @[email protected] or @[email protected] could inform me on this if they would be so gracious.