A Pakistani imam has been given the death sentence for raping and murdering a 13-year-old boy.
He killed the child to conceal his sin and threw the body in fields near the mosque.
Odds are this was only the last of many children this man molested. This is why Muslims who report Muslim leaders engaged in sexual abuse are the best defenders of the ummah. As was noted in a case earlier this year in America:
The father knows that many Muslims would have kept this matter private.
He could have quietly moved his family to another mosque and left Shahade behind.
“Some people feel that airing your dirty laundry, the shame comes on you. No. Our family does not feel shame,” he said. “If we had let him go, he would’ve done it to somebody else.”
kazi mahmood 5:38 am on December 27, 2009 Permalink |
It is not a Muslim thing to keep such crimes secret. It is not fair to generalize in this matter. In other Muslim societies outside Pakistan Muslims will either report such abuses to the authorities or if things go out of hand, they will do the justice themselves. it is thus probably a Pakistani thing to have ‘kept this matter private.’
Hope point taken!
cbarwa 2:14 am on December 28, 2009 Permalink |
I don’t think johnpi was inferring that it is a ‘Muslim thing’ at all; just that there is always a temptation and a human reaction to try and protect those in a priveleged position of religious leadership and to avoid scandal for the ’shame’ or opprobium it can bring to the religion – you only need to look, something which johnpi was too polite to do, to how the Catholic church as handled the paedophilia scandal in the US and Ireland to see how NOT to respond to these occurences. Johnpi’s point as I see it, is that the right course of action is to make sure that such instances are reported and penalised and not covered up. Also can I say that there is a huge stigma attached to this still, even in the West, never mind South Asia or the Middle East; so to pretend that it is only a ‘Pakistani thing’ seems disingenous to me.