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Religious Leaders Say US Troops Mistreat Children
From Jihad UnspunReligious leaders order parents, guardians not to let children The Council of Islamic Legal Rulings in al-Anbar Province issued a ruling that was posted on mosques in the area forbidding parents to allow their children into the street alone from today onward. The Islamic religious authority said that parents could let their children out only if they exercise supervision over them or allow them out near the doors of their houses so that they would be able to run home before US troops can approach them. The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in ar-Ramadi reported that the Council issued its statement in response to the growing number of incidents of sexual attacks on children in rural areas, particularly by US soldiers. US forces have also used Iraqi children as human shields to protect them from Resistance attacks when they invade towns and villages â a practice that has dramatically increased lately in the cities of ar-Ramadi, Hit, al-Khalidiyah, and al-Qaâim. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in Mosul, meanwhile, reported that the Mufti (Islamic Jurisconsult) for the city issued the same ruling Friday night. Among Iraqâs Shiâi population, the preacher representing the Muqtada as-Sadr movement, Shaykh Muhammad Husayn al-âAmidi, made the same call in his Friday sermon. Shaykh al-âAmidi said: âit is shocking and shameful that the occupation forces are taking the children of Iraq as easy playthings and use them as human shields to ward off the blows of the Resistance. .... We call on guardians of children not to send their children out of the house if they want to protect them. The massacre in Baghdad al-Jadidah should be a sufficient example for guardians of what can happen otherwise to children.â The same has happened in Diyala Province, northeast of Baghdad, where numerous religious leaders held an emergency meeting of directors of schools and kindergartens and parents and told them not to let the children in their care out into the street for fear that they would be used as human shields or be molested by US soldiers. In Baghdad the puppet so-called âministry of human rightsâ confirmed that there were at least 17 cases of sexual molestation of children coming home from school by occupation soldiers in June. The puppet âministryâ said that seven of the victims were little girls between the ages of eight and ten. The source in the puppet âministryâ refused to specify the locations where the attacks occurred, saying only that they were in the east and south of Baghdad. Mafkarat al-Islam published similar reports more than two months ago concerning US soldiers molesting Iraqi children and using them as human shields. Dubious. Posted by: Mike Sylwester 2005-07-31 |
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