- China is waging an unprecedented crackdown on a Muslim minority called the Uighurs, who live in the country's western frontier region, Xinjiang.
- Muslims have for centuries settled in the region, sometimes referred to as East Turkestan.
- As part of its crackdown, which has seen the installation of facial-recognition cameras and seemingly arbitrary detentions, China's government has also destroyed traditional Uighur architecture including mosques and large parts of an ancient city called Kashgar.
- Before-and-after images show the extent of some of the destruction of these historical locations.
The government justified the destruction of the Old City and the construction of the "new Old City" - which would be complete with new apartment complexes and shopping malls - as a means to prevent the old structures from crumbling and to allow for better sanitation, The New York Times reported at the time.
The demolition has also created wider streets, which has made the area easier to patrol.
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Rachel Harris, an expert in Uighur culture and reader in ethnomusicology at SOAS University of London, wrote in The Guardian: "Whole cities are being redesigned to facilitate maximum security and surveillance of the local population."
Scholars and activists have also warned of Beijing's efforts to eradicate Uighur culture.
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