Author:
Publication: www.secularism.org.uk/
Date: October 20, 2002
URL: http://www.secularism.org.uk/news20oct2t.htm#four
The Labour MP for Keighley, West
Yorkshire, Ann Cryer, has set alarm bells ringing in her constituency after
claiming that physical abuse of children attending religious classes at
mosques could be widespread.
Ms Cryer made her claims of abuse
after staff at madrassas - schools for religious indoctrination - admitted
during a police visit that they had abused children.
Primary school teachers raised their
concerns after some of their pupils claimed they had been whipped, punched
and kicked. Other children said they had been tied up with wire and made
to squat in the "chicken position" for long periods of time. They were
allegedly told that British law did not apply inside mosques because the
mosque was part of Pakistan. They were also threatened with being "sent
away" if they spoke of the abuse.
A leaked letter, dated 25 July,
written by local policeman Det. Chief Inspector Michael Hopwood, said the
mosque committee at the Emily Street mosque in Keighley had accepted that
one of its imams had carried out "unacceptable practices".
"There was an acceptance that the
practices we spoke of did occur," said the letter.
The police said they have received
no complaints. But in a sworn statement obtained by Channel Four, one of
the teachers says: "Some of the children have shown me bruises on their
bodies which they say were inflicted by the imams at the mosque. One boy
came to me with what looked like red stripes across his back. He told me
they were the result of being whipped by a wire."
The children claim they were assaulted
when they misbehave or when they make mistakes in their work. One boy said
another boy would be hit because he could never remember passages from
the Koran he was supposed to have memorised.
Interviewed on Channel Four news
last week, local police seemed reluctant to take the matter further, obviously
constrained by the fear that they would be accused of racism or "offending
Muslim sensibilities" if they conducted a full-scale inquiry.
