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(OPINION) Over the recent months, more and more allegations and evidence have come to light of the dire treatment of Uighur Muslims in China, including mass incarcerations, abuse, forced labor and forced sterilizations, all of which are strongly denied by Beijing. While some of these alleged crimes are hidden by the fact that they are perpetrated behind closed doors and therefore are difficult to verify, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may have made a mistake that adds to the increasingly clear picture of how it is treating the religious minority group, namely the public demolition of mosques.

According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), mosques across Xinjiang are being destroyed. As their report states, “We located and analyzed a sample of 533 mosques across Xinjiang, including 129 from Urumqi. Of those mosques, 170 were destroyed (31.9%), 175 were damaged (32.8%) and 188 remained undamaged (35.3%). Of the 404 mosques we sampled in other parts of Xinjiang, 148 were destroyed (36.6%), 152 were damaged (37.6%) and 104 were undamaged (25.8%).” ASPI further indicates that “across [Xinjiang] approximately 16,000 mosques have been damaged or destroyed and 8,450 have been entirely demolished. The 95% confidence range of our regional findings is ±4% for the estimates of demolished, destroyed and undamaged mosque numbers.”

APSI suggests that “the Chinese Government’s destruction of cultural heritage aims to erase, replace and rewrite what it means to be Uighur and to live in the [Xinjiang]. The state is intentionally recasting its Turkic and Muslim minorities in the image of the Han centre for the purposes of control, domination and profit.” This is not the first allegation of this sort. Indeed, in the last few months, media reporting has suggested that state-authorized destruction of churches and other places of worship has taken place across China. The allegations continue to be denied.

The destruction of places of worship is a fundamental violation of human rights that cannot and should not be ignored. Indeed, places of worship are an essential part of the right to freedom of religion or belief, enabling some form of religious manifestation. For example, under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) one has the right to manifest religion or belief in a community with others, including in worship. The U.N. Human Rights Committee has clarified that “the concept of worship extends to … the building of places of worship.” Furthermore, Article 6 of the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief makes it explicit that freedom of religion or belief includes the freedom to “worship or assemble in connection with a religion or belief, and to establish and maintain places for these purposes.” The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom emphasizes that “In protecting the rights of all persons to worship or assemble in connection with their religion and to establish and maintain places for these purposes, states must ensure that religious places, sites, shrines, and other symbols are fully respected and protected, including when vulnerable to desecration or destruction.”

Furthermore, places of worship and property that have cultural or spiritual heritage are protected during armed conflicts. Under international criminal law, and according to Article 8(2)(b)(ix) and (e)(iv) of the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court, “intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes… provided they are not military objectives” constitutes a war crime. This is also clearly recognized in the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which states that “Violations shall include... seizure of, destruction or willful damage done to institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, historic monuments and works of art and science.”

Ewelina U. Ochab is a legal researcher and human rights advocate, Ph.D. candidate and author of the book “Never Again: Legal Responses to a Broken Promise in the Middle East” and more than 30 UN reports. She works on the topic of persecution of minorities around the world. This piece was republished from Forbes with permission.