Muslims in China's 'Little Mecca' fear eradication of Islam

Ethnic Hui Muslims leaving Laohuasi Mosque after Friday prayers in Linxia, China's Gansu province, where many fear fear a deliberate campaign to 'exterminate' Islam is under way. [AFP]

Green-domed mosques still dominate the skyline of China's "Little Mecca", but they have undergone a profound change -- no longer do boys flit through their stone courtyards en route to classes and prayers.

In what locals told AFP they fear is a deliberate move to eradicate Islam, the atheist ruling Communist Party has banned minors under 16 from religious activity or study in Linxia, a deeply Islamic region in western China that had offered a haven of comparative religious freedom for the ethnic Hui Muslims there.