China has demolished more than 100 Uighur graveyards in what human rights groups described as an escalation of the communist regime\u2019s campaign to destroy the Muslim minority\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n
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<\/span><\/p>\n China has demolished more than 100 Uighur graveyards in what human rights groups described as an escalation of the communist regime\u2019s campaign to destroy the Muslim minority\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n Hundreds of satellite images analysed by CNN showed burial sites in western Xinjiang province have been wiped out, with some turned into car parks and playgrounds.<\/p>\n The US broadcaster found the majority of the cemeteries, where generations of Uighurs had been buried, were destroyed over the last two years.<\/p>\n Aziz Isa Elkun, a Uighur poet who fled the region more than 20 years ago and now lives in London, said he had \u201cvisited\u201d his father\u2019s grave on Google Earth for nearly two years after he died. But one day an updated satellite image showed the cemetery had been replaced with a field.<\/p>\n \u201cI had no idea what happened,\u201d he told CNN. \u201cI was completely in shock.\u201d<\/p>\n China did not deny destroying the cemeteries, and at least one official notice said one of the burial sites been relocated \u201cto meet the demand of city planning and promote construction\u201d.<\/p>\n Western countries and human rights groups have expressed their concern over reports China has detained up to two million people, mostly Uighur Muslims, since a purported counterterrorism campaign began in Xinjiang in 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China has demolished more than 100 Uighur graveyards in what human rights groups described as an escalation of the communist regime\u2019s campaign to destroy the Muslim minority\u2019s culture. China has demolished more than 100 Uighur graveyards in what human rights groups described as an escalation of the communist regime\u2019s campaign to destroy the Muslim minority\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_108372464460192_245495985553329":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[125,205,1186],"class_list":["post-8492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-china","tag-muslim","tag-uighurs"],"yoast_head":"\n