Mosque is a flashpoint in China
BEIJING - It took two years to build the Weizhou Grand Mosque, with its four towering minarets and nine onion-shaped domes.
On Aug. 3, officials in Tongxin county in northern China ruled that the all-white structure had been built without proper permits and ordered that it be razed in seven days or the government would tear it down.
The choice of the deadline was unfortunate: It fell on a Friday, a day of prayer for Muslims. That same day, China's record on racial discrimination was being reviewed by a United Nations committee in Geneva.
Gay McDougall, an American human rights attorney and vice chairwoman of the
