Relevant & Timely News

UK Students Taught How to Chop Off Hands: BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, November 22, 2010. A BBC investigation has reported that Islamic schools across Britain are teaching their students, in graphic detail, how to chop off a criminal's hand. The schools use Sharia law-based textbooks to teach up to 5,000 students, ranging from age 6 to 18, instructing them that thieves must be punished by dismemberment, that Jews are conspiring to take over the world, and that individuals who engage in homosexual acts must be stoned to death, burned to death, or thrown off cliffs. Although Education Minister Michael Gove expressed that the use of any anti-Semitic material in English schools was unacceptable, he also stated that he "ha[s] no desire or wish to intervene in the decisions that the Saudi government makes in its own education system." The full article can be found here.

Al-Arabiya TV Director: Religious Satellite Channels 'Too Dangerous to be Left Unrestricted', MEMRI, November 7, 2010. In a London Daily op-ed, Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, director of Al-Arabiya TV, discussed the proliferation of Islamic "religious propaganda channels," stating that these channels are "too dangerous to be left unrestricted." Al-Rashed blames this proliferation on fatwas that permit charitable donations, intended for orphans and the poor, to be used to fund Islamic media projects. These channels broadcast "toxic and deadly" programming, says Al-Rashed, that draws children to jihad and suicide missions. Al-Rashed continues on to admonish the owners of satellite stations, asserting that they care only for financial gain, irrespective of the fact that this gain comes at the expense of children's lives. Al-Rashed also faults governments for doing "very little" to prevent this dangerous broadcasting. The full article can be found here.

UN Says Congo Armed Groups Forming Criminal Gangs, The Washington Post, November 29, 2010. Despite the impact of international reform programs, militia groups in eastern Congo have formed criminal networks, the activities of which include recruiting child soldiers, seizing land, poaching endangered wildlife, and illegally exploiting the nation's minerals and natural resources. The U.N. reported that a criminal gang has even formed within the army. In response, the U.N. Security Council renewed its arms embargo for non-governmental individuals and groups, and implemented a freeze on the assets of people linked to the illegal militant groups as well as a travel ban. Susan Rice, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., posited that such sanctions can help stabilizing the Congo and hold responsible those who recruit child soldiers, murder civilians, and "use rape as a weapon of war." The full article can be found here.

UN to Probe Charges of Maoists Still Keeping Child Soldiers, The Times of India, November 26, 2010. The U.N. has announced that it would commence an investigation, aided by Unicef, into allegations that Nepal's opposition Maoist party has not discharged hundreds of child soldiers illegally recruited during the party's ten-year-old armed uprising. In 2006, the U.N. found that approximately 3,000 children were recruited in violation international norms. Despite the Maoists' agreement to honorably discharge the child soldiers, they only did so after nearly four years of pressure by U.N. agencies and human rights organizations. However, following the February 2010 discharge, Nepalese media sources began reporting that many of the discharged child soldiers had been "herded once more by the Maoists in camps in remote villages." The full article is available here.