Saturday, May 31, 2008 | Reason : Religion as Child Abuse | print version

Teacher tortures, kills boy

by News 24

Thanks to Ryan Hill for the link.

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_2331919,00.html

Teacher tortures, kills boy

Multan, Pakistan - A blind seven-year-old student at an Islamic school in eastern Pakistan has died after his teacher punished him for not learning the Qu'ran, police said on Friday.

Muhammad Atif was hung upside down from a ceiling fan and severely beaten by his teacher, Qari Ziauddin, at the seminary or madrassa in Vihari, near Lahore on Thursday, they said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had ordered an inquiry into the death, an official statement said.

"The prime minister has expressed his deep sorrow and concern over the tragic death of Muhammad Atif, who reportedly died as a result of corporal punishment by his teacher," the statement said.

Police said the teacher had been arrested on charges of torturing and murdering the boy.

"Qari Ziauddin, who teaches Qu'ran to boys in Qari Latif Islamic school, hanged Atif upside down on a ceiling fan in the school after beating him with sticks, which caused his death," local police official Akram Niazi told AFP.

The teacher also failed to take the boy to hospital after he fell ill and his condition deteriorated, he said.

Police said a post-mortem report also confirmed physical torture as the cause of death.

Pakistan's 13 000 registered madrassas offer free schooling and board to hundreds of thousands of poor children in this devout nation, but some have also been linked to Islamic extremism.

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1. Comment #186714 by sane1 on May 31, 2008 at 7:41 am

Holy Shit!

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2. Comment #186716 by scottishgeologist on May 31, 2008 at 7:50 am

And Tony Blair thinks that there is some value in sitting down with a nice cup of tea with the followers of this mediaeval savagery and discussing how "religion" can be a force for good in the world.

A twat when in office, a bigger twat now. And a dangerously naive one.

SG

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3. Comment #186721 by moderndaythomas on May 31, 2008 at 8:06 am

his teacher punished him for not learning the Qu'ran

And religions are insisting that they be free from scrutiny. It's no wonder that Islam and the Catholic church are united on this matter.

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4. Comment #186724 by epeeist on May 31, 2008 at 8:10 am

Comment #186721 by moderndaythomas

And religions are insisting that they be free from scrutiny. It's no wonder that Islam and the Catholic church are united on this matter.

You have to be slightly careful about this. It was one incident by one teacher in one school. Unless other cases come to light you can't generalise from it.

Having said that, lets hope the new Pakistani government uses it to put some controls in place over the madrassas.

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5. Comment #186733 by b0ltzm0n on May 31, 2008 at 8:25 am

The kid was blind, and was beaten for not learning the Qu'ran? Does the Qu'ran come in brail?

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6. Comment #186734 by robotaholic on May 31, 2008 at 8:25 am

"you will learn this religion of peace or I will kill you!" - great

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7. Comment #186737 by Pattern Seeker on May 31, 2008 at 8:32 am

A blind child?

Fucking Monster! Sorry, but it's shit like this that makes my stomach turn. This person? deserves no mercy.

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8. Comment #186740 by moderndaythomas on May 31, 2008 at 8:38 am

epeeist.

Agreed, I can't pretend to know a hell of a lot about the Islamic philosophy, or the policies of the land there, but in this case there had to be a certain confidence or righteousness in this teachers actions.

And we know that this confidence operates on a grander scale elsewhere and with other faiths.

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9. Comment #186741 by Zoron on May 31, 2008 at 8:38 am

Boring..just imagine every sick shit you can and it already has and will be done because of Islam.

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10. Comment #186743 by Szkeptik on May 31, 2008 at 8:39 am

You know what? The only thing that surprises me is that they are actually going to punish the teacher. Seriously. The only thing that's unusual is that the teacher might get punished for it.
Imagine if it was a little girl beaten to death noone would even care around there. I'm pretty sure that if it was a girl they wouldn't even had reported it.

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11. Comment #186745 by Border Collie on May 31, 2008 at 8:42 am

I really hate taking issue with any of you guys over anything. You're all very intelligent and I'm very glad that this site exists and I thoroughly enjoy reading the comments ... however... We can't generalize from it? Strictly speaking, that's true. We can reduce anything to the ridiculous. That is, on some level we can't generalize anything. Considering, however, that this is not an isolated incident, but one of hundreds or thousands or relatively similar incidents that have a common root, I think a little generalization might be in order. Symptoms of a pathology are not isolated incidents. A legalistic, nitpicky approach just keeps one blind. But, I guess we can pick the fly shit out of the pepper until we're all sitting around chanting "Allah Akbar", singing "Koom Bay Yah" and roasting marshmallows. And, please, don't hold your breath waiting for the Pakistani government to improve things.

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12. Comment #186746 by mordacious1 on May 31, 2008 at 8:43 am

This kid was probably the only one in the school that could "see", so they killed him. Pakistan is one f-d up place. Too bad the Prime Ministers,et al, have no political will to do something about the North, where this probably happened.

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13. Comment #186747 by Zoron on May 31, 2008 at 8:46 am

[quote]You know what? The only thing that surprises me is that they are actually going to punish the teacher. Seriously. The only thing that's unusual is that the teacher might get punished for it. [/quote]

Yeah, I find that strange too, it's probably going to be symbolic "punishment" like when they burn women, beat them to death or pour acid on them.

Anyway I don't feel sorry for the kid because, after all, they all come out of these "schools" as lunatics, just one less dead lunatic of Islam.

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14. Comment #186748 by JohnQ on May 31, 2008 at 8:49 am

Why, oh why, is anyone here surprised? I have no doubt that, if they thought they could get away with it, faithheads in this US would do equally hideous things in the name of their religion.

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15. Comment #186755 by mordacious1 on May 31, 2008 at 9:01 am

JohnQ
Who says they don't?

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16. Comment #186758 by leviticus on May 31, 2008 at 9:12 am

Zoron

Anyway I don't feel sorry for the kid because, after all, they all come out of these "schools" as lunatics, just one less dead lunatic of Islam.

I think if we are to really have any real moral value we must feel sorry for this kid and those like him. As a human i feel ashamed that anyone could live and die in such conditions at such a modern time. I also have a great deal of sympathy for all the young students who are or are about to be brainwashed by their faith. Imagine if this boy was smart enough to "see", as one said earlier. As in see through the bullshit, and this is why he was killed what an awful reason and way to die. Finally i think we must feel sorry for children like this. If we don't we are take the way we now live for granted.

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17. Comment #186759 by Zoron on May 31, 2008 at 9:13 am

Btw, not so long ago catholic priests and nuns also psychologically/physically tortured and beat kids on a pretty massive scale..

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18. Comment #186764 by Tenochtitlan on May 31, 2008 at 9:28 am

That, is, sick. Holy shit indeed.

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19. Comment #186767 by Tetsujin on May 31, 2008 at 9:31 am

As a former muslim, I can tell you that beatings are common in madrasas.

Correction: I was never really a muslim, just told to be one from an early age.

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20. Comment #186777 by epeeist on May 31, 2008 at 9:50 am

Comment #186745 by Border Collie

We can't generalize from it? Strictly speaking, that's true. We can reduce anything to the ridiculous. That is, on some level we can't generalize anything. Considering, however, that this is not an isolated incident, but one of hundreds or thousands or relatively similar incidents that have a common root, I think a little generalization might be in order.

Were you here when the "wee flea" (David Robertson) was about? A religionist who sought to characterise allatheists on the basis of a few quotemined comments?

This is one reported incident, I can give the case of the beating of a child in my local area as another (it didn't lead to a death though. If you know of "hundreds or thousands" then add them to the list. A dozen, especially from the same area, would be pretty indicative of common behaviour.

But let's leave off the "Daily Mail" style leap to conclusions.

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21. Comment #186778 by EvidenceOnly on May 31, 2008 at 9:51 am

While it is true that we should not generalize from a single incident, it would be worth investigating if these incidents are really isolated.

In that case, we should count all incidents where someone is killed for religious reasons. What Steven Weinberg calls "good people doing evil things because of religion".

That should include killing girls and women for violating insane religious rules, anyone who abandons a religion, anyone killed in a religious war, anyone killed because of a different religion or no religion at all, women that bleed to death during sexual mutilation because of religious beliefs, ...

The list is too endless to complete.

From that point of view, religion-inspired killings are widespread.

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22. Comment #186779 by Dr Doctor on May 31, 2008 at 9:53 am

"But let's leave off the "Daily Mail" style leap to conclusions."

Brilliant comment. Reading the comments section of various articles this morning has reminded me strongly of John Junor.

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23. Comment #186783 by Count von Count on May 31, 2008 at 10:04 am

Tetsujin-

My guess on this matter was that the teacher had certainly "learned the Koran." Would you say this is true? I haven't (yet) read the Koran.

The teachers actions are more or less consistent with the teachings of Leviticus:

"For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death: he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him." Leviticus 20:9 (supposedly spoken by God to Moses)

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24. Comment #186788 by epeeist on May 31, 2008 at 10:12 am

Comment #186778 by EvidenceOnly

While it is true that we should not generalize from a single incident, it would be worth investigating if these incidents are really isolated.

Apart from the strange shift from single to plural in the above quotation I absolutely agree.

If you look at the mouthings of people like Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB you will find he dismisses such incidents as "cultural" rather than religious. Build up a large dossier and he would have a lot more difficulty in doing this.

And as you note, I still think a single incident will give the Pakistani authorities a mandate to investigate the practices of the religious schools.

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25. Comment #186790 by mordacious1 on May 31, 2008 at 10:14 am

EvidenceOnly
I do not know if Steven Weinberg's "it takes religion to get good people to do evil" can be asserted here. I have a hunch, and it's only a hunch grant you, that this guy was more of an evil person doing evil under the guise of religion.

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26. Comment #186815 by Zoron on May 31, 2008 at 10:47 am

People, people...you really need to get informed, beatings and pedophilia in such "schools" is really a common practice, there are whole organizations and web sites dedicated to just this.

Really people, in case of Islam, not generalizing is a fallacy.

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27. Comment #186818 by doubtingfoo on May 31, 2008 at 10:49 am

Wow, 13000 schools offering free "education" to the poor. Imagine if Christian churches offered free education like that here in the US. Fortunately we have a (somewhat) secular public school system.

I feel so bad for that boy and his parents. No child should die. No parent should have to lose their child.

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28. Comment #186825 by Madmaili on May 31, 2008 at 10:56 am

Barbaric.

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29. Comment #186837 by Layla Nasreddin on May 31, 2008 at 11:42 am

It's common for blind boys to memorize the Qur'an because then they can make a living being a qari' (Qur'an reciter) at public events. They learn it by repeating, or rather parroting back, what they hear, although they do have braille Qur'ans now.

This reminds me of a story told by the traveler Ibn Batutta. While in the African kingdom of Mali in the 1350s, he noted the inhabitants' devotion to Islamic learning: "They place fetters on their children if there appears on their part a failure to memorize the Qur'an, and they are not undone until they memorize it."

Physical abuse (beatings, etc.) has always been a part of the traditional Qur'an school (kuttab or madrasa), though certainly not to the extent mentioned in the story (no use killing your students!). There is a saying (at least in Morocco): "No part of the body struck while learning the Qur'an will burn in hell." Memorizing the word of Allah is so important that any method used to do so is apparently OK...disgusting.

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30. Comment #186839 by Wosret on May 31, 2008 at 11:46 am

Wow, what a sick fuck. My concern would be how long this teacher has "taught", and how many children didn't die as a result of their torture. I find it hard to believe that the teacher just snapped one day, and had never administered such punishment in the past.

I think this needs to be thoroughly investigated, and discovered how prevailant such capitol punishment is in these "schools".

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31. Comment #186841 by agn on May 31, 2008 at 11:53 am

What is insane to begin with is a school system that monomaniacally "educates" poor boys with utterly worthless skills like memorization of the Quran.

This perversion of the very idea of school is growing as a malignant cancer throughout the entire world.

It is this system that is sick and evil to its core, not just a representative member of it like the teacher in question.

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32. Comment #186842 by Wosret on May 31, 2008 at 11:55 am

Maybe I could get one of those teachers to help me memorize the Kanji. It's slow going.

As long as they promise not to kill me of course.

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33. Comment #186844 by Auraboy on May 31, 2008 at 12:07 pm

I ponder on the differences here. The strict recital culture of the Koran in Pakistan, when the varying sects of muslims and just about every Imam interprets the text differently versus the Evangelical Christians of the west, who never seem to be able to even quote the bible accurately. I can usually outquote them on biblical sayings. It's odd. Parrot recital and hatred versus misjudged dallying and fear.

Of course the sad thing about many poor muslim countries is that it's Madrassa or death by poverty on the streets. You can imagine the occasional act of totalitarian brutality, hatethink and brainwashing sounds rather good when free food is included.

Not that I think religious indoctrination doesn't affect the wealthy too, but poverty has a root connection with extremist belief in many places. The wealthy tend to use it as one more device.

Okay, there ends my rather lefty old rant.

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34. Comment #186846 by Jiten on May 31, 2008 at 12:14 pm

And yet Dostoevsky said without god all is permitted!

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35. Comment #186874 by Tetsujin on May 31, 2008 at 2:47 pm

Count von Count:

My guess on this matter was that the teacher had certainly "learned the Koran." Would you say this is true? I haven't (yet) read the Koran.

Edit: could someone tell me how to insert quotes?

Depends on what you mean by learned. For those of you who are not familiar with traditional south asian schooling. Information is thrown at you, kids are expected to memorize it, and purge all of that onto the exam or oral test at the end of the year.

Same goes for Islamic schooling. Urdu and Arabic use a similar script but when it comes to the words themselves the kids have no idea what they're reading. Absolutely none! You can have a 12 year old hafiz (someone who can sit and recite the quran by memory from cover to cover), the style of the writing is repetetive or "poetic" and it's easy enough to recall.

In the days when I didn't go to an islamic school I recited at home. My parents took the approach of rewarding me for memorizing surahs. So i made some pocket money at the age of 8 or whatever. It's cute and all but what am I going to buy at that age? I can actually appreciate it now that my version of the Quran had arabic on one side and english translations on the opposite page.

How does a child refuse? You risk insulting or disobeying your parents or your teacher. In islam a teacher has the same rights as a parent, and in some cases more. By puberty parents want their kids to be practising muslims, it's a matter of pride for the family and for the sake of allah, to ensure they do their part in making another life miserable as their parents made their lives miserable and teaching it how to do the same for others.

So no, they haven't learned anything. Verses are parroted back and forth and a grandiose picture is painted of the benevolent and shallow god we should praise 24/7 or he somehow throws a fit and stops answering your prayers or just maybe he won't save you if you jump off a cliff.

Say "insert verses/prayer" before you enter your house
Say "insert verses/prayer" before you leave your house
Say "insert verses/prayer" before you eat
Say "insert verses/prayer" after you're done eating
Say "insert verses/prayer" before you go to the bathroom
Say "insert verses/prayer" when you wake up
Say "insert verses/prayer" before you go to sleep, and you won't have nightmares

Sounds funny?
The whole system is founded on having god on your mind 24/7/365, the moment you don't you're a sinner.

This guy probably thinks he's a saint for preventing another heretic from questioning god.

If you're interested, www.islamicboard.com, I have the same username etc...

I'm sure they'll appreciate the influx of free thinkers... :) just kidding.

PS: I didn't grow up in Pakistan

Also, I'm at work so edited for grammar and spelling will come later.

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36. Comment #186876 by Vinelectric on May 31, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Sick. You definitely need help.

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37. Comment #186882 by Border Collie on May 31, 2008 at 3:53 pm

This is not about a kid not learning what was required of him. This is about the pathology of the teacher and the system he and the boy both lived in. The Islamic thing is simply a huge death cult ... like most cults. Part of the fear the Islamists have of the West is that we are exposing the ghoulish aspects of Islam. No cult wants to be exposed. They do not want to have to look at their own behavior.

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38. Comment #186884 by Duff on May 31, 2008 at 4:08 pm

"Without god, all is permitted". That is just a piece of propaganda perpetrated by the religious to hide the ugly truth of the manifest and abundant evils religion has visited upon mankind from the time civilization began.

At least the rational humanist would have an immmediate concern about his reputation among his fellow humans. The religionist believes in an amorphous, distant punishment for which he could later repent, if necessary. They are the dangerous ones.

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39. Comment #186885 by GBart on May 31, 2008 at 4:16 pm

Oh surely it must be political or economic. It can't be religion, because faith is a virtue!

Barbaric slime. Why is it so hard to rid the world of gods?

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40. Comment #186887 by HourglassMemory on May 31, 2008 at 4:29 pm

This might sound extremely shallow but as I read "Pakistan", I sighed.

I hate the fact that religion is such a tremendous lubricant for this sort of inane behaviour.

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41. Comment #186888 by Peribolos on May 31, 2008 at 4:30 pm

I agree with epeeist's initial statement, until I see evidence that this kind of behaviour occurs regularly in a number of different madrassas I must assume that it is an isolated incident by a single nutcase. Islam may have its problems but the actions of a single individual are neither here nor there. Extrapolating from one occurence to 'all islam is bad' is the kind of reasoning you get in the daily mail, I'm pretty sure a bunch of rationalists can do better. :)

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42. Comment #186892 by mordacious1 on May 31, 2008 at 4:34 pm

Peribolos
By talking with some of my Pakistani friends, I've learned that severe beatings can be quite common in these schools. Probably not deaths, although who knows? I think the beatings are encouraged rather discouraged, that's the problem.

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43. Comment #186893 by PrimeNumbers on May 31, 2008 at 4:44 pm

"Without god, all is permitted".

The obvious corollary is "With god, anything is justified."

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44. Comment #186894 by Peribolos on May 31, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Mordacious1, that would not surprise me in the slightest. If they are half as brutal as some of the schools run by the catholic church in the 20th century then they are probably horrific places. That said they were no worse than many private boarding schools a little earlier in the century. Religion is indeed a 'lubricant' as HourglassMemory put it, but at the end of the day it takes a sadistic twisted person, religious or not, to beat a kid to death. Let's not get too trigger happy on Islam just because we don't like it generally.

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45. Comment #186903 by ricey on May 31, 2008 at 5:58 pm

Good to see the measured comments on Islam - only a nutjob is capable of this sort of thing and I don't accept that mainstream Muslims would for a second condone this.

Boils down to C Hitchens' comment though: you don't need to think very hard to recall an evil action carried out in the name of religion.

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46. Comment #186908 by wiz220 on May 31, 2008 at 6:21 pm

I'm amazed that he's being arrested at all! Now if this had been a girl, he would probably be given a medal.

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47. Comment #186910 by OverUsedChewToy on May 31, 2008 at 6:36 pm

Islam's just one gigantic Rape the Dog moment;

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RapeTheDog

Except it's real..and some people still defend this utter barbarism. Go figure.

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48. Comment #186914 by History_Junky on May 31, 2008 at 7:03 pm

These kind of things happen in public schools over in that part of the world as well. This has more to do with culture imo then religion.

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49. Comment #186922 by Christopher Davis on May 31, 2008 at 8:07 pm

"Pakistan's 13 000 registered madrassas offer free schooling and board to hundreds of thousands of poor children in this devout nation, but some have also been linked to Islamic extremism."---article

SOME have been linked to Islamic extremism??? That has got to be the understatement of the year.

While I agree with the point that epeeist and others have made---that it's unfair to condemn all Islam based on this one incident---I'm not willing to give the "religion of peace" a pass on this one (not that I'm saying anyone else has suggested we do).

It's great that this "teacher" is going to be prosecuted, but I doubt this will do anything to curb the use of corporal punishment in Pakistan's madrassas.

Anyone who has watched "Jesus Camp" knows that Muslims don't hold a monopoly of the systematic abuse of their children in the name of religion, but I've yet to read about anything similar to this incident in any western country.

However, maybe some good will come out of this. If it opens dialogue and more people become aware of what actually goes on in Pakistan's madrassas, then maybe people will realize that claiming these hell-holes are places of education is a sick joke.

Pakistan is not an ally to the western world, and the form of Islam practiced by most of its citizens deserves to be labeled barbaric.

EDIT: "to this incident" added to the 4th paragraph for clarity.

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50. Comment #186926 by blasphemer on May 31, 2008 at 8:33 pm

Anyone who has watched "Jesus Camp" knows that Muslims don't hold a monopoly of the systematic abuse of their children in the name of religion, but I've yet to read about anything similar in any western country.

Well, if you count exorcisms as similar, then we have a similar kind of insanity here in the U.S. too. Not too long ago there were reported a few incidents of children being tortured to death while the dedicated believers tried to cast out the demons.

Beyond this, it is sickening that the most vulnerable in society are preyed upon by religious ideologues and "taught" absolutely nothing of practical value.

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