Crowd fights Chinese police at mosque demolition (AP)

BEIJING ? A police employee says Chinese Muslims have fought with officers who demolished a mosque in China's northwest.

The employee who answered the phone at the police station in Hexi, a town in the Ningxia region, said the crowd tried to stop the demolition Friday night. She said about 80 people were detained and the mosque was demolished.

A Hong Kong monitoring group, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said authorities demolished the mosque because it was declared an illegal religious place.

The Information Center cited a villager as saying two people died in the violence, but said it could not confirm that. The police employee, who refused to give her name, said there were no deaths.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/asia/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120102/ap_on_re_as/as_china_mosque_clash

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