US Congress panel tells Hilton to halt plan to build hotel on destroyed mosque site in China

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A bipartisan U.S. congressional commission has urged hospitality chain Hilton Worldwide not to go ahead with a hotel project on the site of a mosque bulldozed to the ground by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang region, where minority Muslims have become victims of widespread human rights abuse.</p>
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Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Jim McGovern have in a letter to the CEO of Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc, expressed concern about reports that a Hilton hotel was being constructed on the site where a mosque was razed in 2018 in Xinjiang.</p>
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"The site is emblematic of the Chinese government's campaign of widespread destruction of Uyghur religious and cultural sites and official efforts to eradicate Uyghurs' religious and cultural practices," Reuters cited the letter as saying.</p>
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The letter also points out the U.S. government has found that genocide and human rights abuse were being perpetrated against Muslims in Xinjiang.</p>
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Hilton should not allow its name to be used to perpetuate and promote the cultural erasure and repression of the millions of Muslims living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the letter said.</p>
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The UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper had first published a story about Hilton’s plan to construct a hotel in Xinjiang.</p>
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It quoted Hilton as saying the hotel was a franchise development overseen by a Chinese firm, Huan Peng Hotel Management, which said it had purchased the land as a vacant lot via a public auction. The company said it would "comply fully with all local laws, authorities and Hilton brand development standards."</p>
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Chinese authorities are reported to have demolished thousands of mosques and shrines and cemeteries in recent years in the Xinjiang</p>
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest U.S. Muslim advocacy organization, has also come out strongly against the move and asked the Hilton group to scrap its plan for building the hotel at the site where a mosque once stood, according to a report in Al Jazeera.</p>