Seeing increasing terrorist activities in Pakistan, the government is imposing stricter visa policies for foreign students studying in madrassahs.
Guess who is not happy? The Binoria Madrassas headmaster Mufti Naeem.
Daily Times of Pakistan reports on more physical violence against students in madrassas by the teachers:
“A 14-year-old madrasa student has been hospitalised and is in serious condition after being thrashed by his teacher, the teacher’s brother and the teacher’s son.
The issue was a minor one; the student told the cleric’s son not to enter his room with his shoes on. The victim has been identified as Muhammad Zahid, a resident of Muzaffargarh district. The cleric’s brother’s name is Umer and son’s name is Abu Bakar. The victim’s brother, Muhammad Shahid, told Daily Times on Friday that his brother and he studied from Qari Suleman in Umer Farooq Madrassa near Doctor’s Hospital.
He said that the cleric’s son entered his brother’s room with his shoes on, on which his brother asked the cleric’s son to take his shoes off. “This infuriated Abu Bakar, who beat my brother up. Umer also came in the room and smashed my brother’s head against the wall several times and stamped on his face about a dozen times. They beat him mercilessly. The next day the cleric came to know about the incident and started beating my brother up. He thrashed him as if he were an animal. My brother was seriously shaken up, but could stand straight. He went to Jinnah Hospital, but doctors told him he was okay.”
Jinnah Hospital House Officer Dr Khalid said, “Muhammad Zahid was brought to hospital by his relatives about a week ago. He ran a high fever. We didn’t know about the beating. We came to know about the incident three days ago. By then Muhammad Zahid’s condition worsened because of the blows to the head and he could not breathe.”
The victim’s father, Muhammad Khan, said he could not afford a good school and therefore was forced to send his children to a madrasa. “It is my fault that my son is in this condition. I haven’t contacted the police because I know they won’t do anything,” he added.
In the Karachi Kids, the children tell a story of another child who was tied to his bed and beaten for rejecting the dictates of the mullahs. This is not an isloated incident.
The Daily Times reports that police in Lahore, Pakistan have recovered a 12-year old boy from a madrassa where he was found in shackles. Police raised the madrassa and found the child tied in iron chains. The mother of the child had sought help of local human rights activists for the recovery of her son.
Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty provide in-depth analysis about the 14-year old Pakistani whose madrassa convinced him to become a suicide bomber.
In Karachi, Eighty-year old Shaikhul Hadith Maulana Dr Sher Ali Shah, who once taught Osama bin Laden and Tehreek-e-Taliban Mulla Umar, is scheduled to act as the chief guest of the third annual ‘All Karachi Madrassas Speech Competition’ at Jamia Islamia Clifton on Thursday (today), the Daily News reports.
What kind of speeches will be given? “The topics up for debate are ‘Dawat wa Tableegh Ki Ehmiyat’ (The importance of proselytizing), Jadeed Zerai Iblagh ka Istemal’ (How to use the latest forms of mass communication), ‘Ikhtlaf-e-Rai aur us ka Ehtram’ (Difference of opinion and how to honour it), ‘Qatal-e-Nahq, Asbab, Asraat aur Wabbal’ (Intentional murder, causes, effects and its curse).”
This is a nice sample of those who are currently instructing American children in Pakistan.
The Chronicle Herald profiles the 14-year old would be suicide bomber whose madrassa instructor told the child he had “one more duty to fulfill” to complete his studies — become a homicide bomber.
The Karachi Kids documents abuse that the children in the madrassas have had to endure at the hands of their clerics, teachers and mullahs. In the film, the boys from Atlanta document discuss the beatings they suffered and recount the torture of one child who tried to leave the madrassa.
It’s clear that this type of abuse os rampant in the madrassa system. Express India is reporting that “A seven-year-old blind boy was allegedly tortured to death by his teacher in Pakistan’s Punjab province ‘for not learning a lesson’.”
Muhammad Atif, who was enrolled at the Qari Latif Madrassa at Vihari in Punjab, was allegedly beaten up by his teacher, Qari Ziauddin, who then tied his feet to a ceiling fan hook.
The boy died after being hung upside down for some time.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has expressed sorrow and concern over the incident and ordered an inquiry.
Atif’s mother and grandmother noticed torture marks on his body and said his fellow students had told them that he had been locked up in a room.
Atif’s body has been sent for autopsy, police official Muhammad Akram Niazi said, adding police was trying to nab Ziauddin.”
In a particularly disturbing segment of the Karachi Kids, the Khan brothers talk about how their father came to Pakistan to marry another woman. Apparently polygamy is not uncommon among radical Muslims.
NPR has now reported that between 50,000 and 100,000 Muslims in the United States are polygamists.
You can see in the film the impact this has on the Khan brothers — an apparently they are not alone.
Radical Islamic clerics in Pakistan tried to convinced Shauker Ullah to blow himself up.
After spending four months in a madrassa, he was instructed to go into Afghanistan and kill foreign soldiers. He was 14 years old.
Kim Barker at the Chicago Tribune reports “The clerics ‘told me if I did a suicide attack, I would not die,’ said Ullah, from Barwan village in North Waziristan, a remote Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan that is a haven for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.”They said, ‘They’re only foreigners. They’ll die, and you won’t.’ ”
“Ullah, who was arrested, allegedly in a car filled with explosives, spoke to a Tribune reporter this month in Kabul, where he was being held in detention by Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency….Afghan officials and child advocates say Ullah, who looks even younger than 14, is an example of how militants here manipulate religion to recruit young people, especially from Pakistan’s tribal areas and Afghanistan’s southern belt, where laws barely apply, militants hold sway and functioning schools are few and far between.”
For the first time we heard the background music that is being integrated into the film. We could not be more excited.
We hope viewers will appreciate the effort and dedication that went into both the film itself and the music contained in it.
