Chinese Muslims in Yunnan Province clashed with armed police in an attempt to stop the communist regime’s forced partial demolition of a local mosque.

Several viral videos on social media showed that many protesters gathered at the entrance of Najiaying Mosque in Nagu Town of Yuxi City in China’s southwestern province Yunnan on May 27.

A large number of special police equipped with batons and riot shields formed a deep human wall surrounding the mosque’s entrance to prohibit people from entering.

In the videos, some protesters tried to charge the police line, and some pushed down the scaffolding for the destruction work on the outer wall of the 13th-century mosque.

Police used violent means to disperse the crowd, leading to a fierce clash between the two sides. The police line once retreated, and a demolition team also temporarily retreated.

Discussion of the incident on Chinese social media platforms was quickly censored.

A user named Ma Ju has been posting updates of the incident with videos on Twitter, which has drawn major Western media outlets’ attention and reports.

In one of the posts, Ma said the CCP authorities dispatched a large number of police officers to be deployed throughout the city.

Signal shielding vehicles from various telecommunications companies were put in place to shut down cellphone and internet connections in the area, he said.

“More than 30 people were arrested today, and a few people were snatched back from the police by other protesters,” Ma said in a Twitter post on May 27 which showed a man in handcuffs with bruising on his chest while a woman could be heard complaining about his treatment.

On May 28, a video showed that under the escort of many armed police, the engineering team continued to enter the Najiaying area, preparing for the forced demolition.

Local Chinese police issued a notice on May 28, stating an incident that “seriously disrupted social order occurred in Nagu Town on May 27”, giving protesters until June 6 to turn themselves in.

Ma said that he had received death threats for posting the updates of the incident on Twitter in his post on May 29 with the threatening messages he received: “I must have done something right. In the past few days, I have received a lot of Twitter private messages that threatened to kill me.”

Yang Na (pseudonym), a Chinese Muslim man with friends in Najiaying, told The Epoch Times on May 29 that the cause of the incident was that the communist authorities required the mosque be made into a Chinese style, but the Muslims disagreed.

“They [Chinese authorities] want to demolish some parts of the mosque and rebuild it [in Chinese style]. The two styles won’t match; it will be too ugly,” Yang said.

The Najiaying Mosque has a history of more than 600 years, with the current building completed in 2004. It is four stories high, has a dome and four ceremonial towers, and can accommodate more than 3,000 people. The authorities have planned to remove the dome and minarets of the mosque.

In recent years, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authorities have demanded the “sinicization” of religion, requiring newly built mosques not to use Islamic-style mosque domes but Chinese palace-style ones.

Yang said that there are more than 10,000 residents in Najiaying, most of whom are Hui Muslims. There are about a thousand Muslims guarding the mosque 24 hours a day.

“Since the morning of May 27, the special police blocked all the roads in Najiaying Township; nobody could enter, exit only,” Yang said.

“At that time, at least 1,000 special policemen entered the town with guns and ammunition. They tried to break their way into the mosque, but local protesters wouldn’t let them.

“Our demand is simply that nothing would be demolished. We have not violated the law. Now we, the Muslims, are determined to die for it, and there is nothing else they can do. If a few more people are arrested, bloodshed will definitely erupt. Now it has escalated to the level of sending in the riot police, using the means to deal with rioters on us.”

Yang added that the authorities have now blocked the news.

“They didn’t say what happened in the police notice but only that it disturbed social order. If anyone posts messages online, they will call and threaten them. I received a call from the police, threatening me not to post anything about the incident.”

Moreover, the government had installed many cameras in mosques before the incident and sent secret agents to pretend to be Muslims attending worship to seek information, Yang said.

The Epoch Times called more than a dozen local mobile phones and landlines in Najiaying on May 29. Most showed that the calls had been answered but couldn’t hear anyone responding. The Tonghai County government’s telephone was unreachable.

Western and Middle East media have reported the incidents and reposted the videos of the clash.

Ma updated on May 30 in his post: “Because of the attention of the global media, your retweets and appeals, as of May 30 local time, everything is alright for now,” indicating the mass arrests and bloodshed haven’t occurred.

The spokesperson of the World Uyghur Congress, Dilshat Rishit, told The Epoch Times on May 29 that the international community must recognize the CCP’s aim of taking away people’s right to spiritual belief.

“The CCP has expanded the extreme policies of eradicating spiritual belief and demolishing mosques in Xinjiang against Uyghurs to the rest of China,” Rishit said.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, called on the Biden administration on May 30 to take action to prevent China from partially demolishing the mosque and continuing to suppress the Muslim minority and the practice of Islam in mainland China.

Ning Haizhong and Hong Ning contributed to this report.