Eid al-Adha prayers were banned this year throughout East Turkistan

In 2017 and 2018, the Chinese authorities closed mosques completely, and in 2020 and 2021, under pressure from international public opinion, they opened a small number of mosques as tourist attractions, and organized some elderly people to perform Eid prayers. It turns out that this year, when Eid al-Adha came, the mosques remained closed. In some mosques that were opened as tourist attractions, artificial gatherings were not organized.
When we monitored information from the Chinese National Bulletin and social media, we found no general scenes of people praying in mosques or entering and exiting mosques in a crowd of people, although there were a few folk songs and dances and a few people dancing the Eid dance. According to reports on Facebook by Zumrat Dawut, an eyewitness to the camp, a British YouTuber posted a special travel video on Eid al-Adha, in which he visited the Uyghur region (East Turkistan) and the labor market in Urumqi. According to the trip note, the tourist passed several mosques, including Khantangri Mosque, and tried to enter some of them, but found that all of them were closed.
We called Urumqi's Galbit police station and asked if the Khantangri Mosque in the area was open this holiday. The officer who initially answered our call hung up as soon as we mentioned the mosque. The second person who answered our call, pretending he couldn't hear us, asked for our phone number and said he would get back to us.
This English tourist went to Urumqi market to shop and try to chat with the residents. While the Chinese population responded positively to the YouTuber, Uyghurs spoke to him very little, and some avoided him.
In short, the aforementioned YouTuber did not notice the group celebrating the holiday.
We contacted Bakholiang Police Station to learn more about other mosques in Urumqi. When we asked officials whether mosques were open on Eid, and if so, how many would attend, officials avoided answering our questions. The officers confirmed that we need to submit a written request to get an answer to this matter. We asked him to give a simple “no” or “yes” answer to our question about whether any of the mosques in his area were open on Eid, but the officer reiterated that such an answer must be followed by formal action.
According to Zumrat Dawut, an eyewitness to the camp, after watching the video footage on the Douyin platform, the intention of the Chinese authorities to replace traditional Chinese festivals such as the Chagan Festival with national Uyghur festivals is being expressed concretely.
According to some comments online, the fact that the vast majority of religious scholars and public figures are in prison is another reason why Eid al-Asha prayers will not be held in East Turkistan this year.